AmboSpeak

Starbucks' Hot Teas (Dec 12 09)

2009-12-11T22:05:00.000-08:00

I am a coffee person, but whenever I have an upset stomach I prefer hot tea instead. Green tea at Sofitel is nice but expensive, and Sofitel is so far away. We can not always have the nice things when we want them.

Starbucks serves very nice and very affordable hot teas, and there is always a Starbucks nearby. Today I had tall Earl Grey, which Starbucks Banawe served with two packets of D'Arbo honey, collected by honeybees from Austrian flowers. I am starting to develop a liking for honeyed hot tea, since I started drinking Starbucks honeyed Earl Grey several months back.

The nice thing about honeyed hot tea is that it is easy to prepare at home. You do not even have to use Earl Grey. One of my graduate students gave me a box of tea from Nepal, and Nepalese tea works just as well. I am sure that some local tea variety would taste just fine, with local honey.

Here's to hot tea and good health!

COMELEC'S DRAFT GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS: SOME QUESTIONS (Dec 03 09)

2009-12-02T18:48:00.000-08:00

SOME QUESTIONS REGARDING
THE (DRAFT) GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR ELECTION 2010
ISSUED BY COMELEC

Questions Prepared by Pablo Manalastas
Fellow, Center for People Empowerment in Governance
December 1-3, 2009

SEC 1. Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) ...

In all cases, the Election Officer shall ensure that at least one (1) member of the BEI shall be an information technology-capable person as certified by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

QUESTION: Where will COMELEC/DOST get more than 80,000 IT capable persons? Will they be paid higher than the other members of the BEI?

SEC 5. Temporary vacancies in the BEI - If, at the time of the meeting of the BEI, any member is absent or a vacancy exists, the members present shall call upon a substitute from the list of public school teachers submitted by the DepEd to perform the duties of the absent member. If none is available, the members present shall appoint any qualified non-partisan registered voter of the precinct to temporarily fill said vacancy until the absent member appears. In case there are two members present, they shall act jointly.

QUESTION: What if the absent member is the IT capable person, and no qualified substitute can be found? Can the BEI continue its work without the IT capable person?

SEC 8. Minutes of voting and counting of votes (Minutes). - The BEI shall enter in the Minutes (A11), the act or data therein required as they occur or become available during voting, counting, and transmission of votes

QUESTION: What details must be placed in the Minutes? Some details are specified elsewhere in this document (GI), but are these details the only ones that need to be placed in the Minutes. Should there not be a document that gives ALL the details that must appear in the Minutes.

SEC. 10. Powers and functions of the BEf. - The BEI shall have the following powers and functions:

a) Conduct the voting in the polling place, electronically count the votes, print the election returns and transmit electronically the election results to the server for the City/Municipal Board of Canvassers, for dominant majority party, dominant minority party, accredited citizens' arm and KBP, and to the central server through the use of the PCOS machine;

QUESTION: Should the correct wording be: "Conduct the voting in the polling place, power on the PCOS machine and enable it to electronically count the votes, print the election returns and transmit electronically the election results to the server for the City/Municipal Board of Canvassers, for dominant majority party, dominant minority party, accredited citizens' arm and KBP, and to the central server".

SEC 10 (c) Maintain order within the polling place and its premises; keep access thereto open and unobstructed; and enforce obedience to its lawful orders. It shall prohibit the use of cellular phones and camera by the voters. If any person refuses to obey the lawful orders of the BEI or conducts himself in a disorderly manner in its presence or within its hearing and thereby interrupts or disturbs its proceedings, the BEI may issue an order in writing directing any peace officer to take said person into custody until the adjournment of the meeting, but such order shall not be executed as to prevent said person from voting. A copy of such written order (Annex *A') shall be attached to the Minutes;

QUESTION: Why prohibit the use of cellular phones and cameras by the voters? Almost all voters have cellular phones with cameras, so it is impractical to prevent 48 million voters from bringing their cellular phones to the precincts. What about the media and watchers from the political parties? Can't watchers use cellular phones and cameras?

SEC. 14. Honoraria of the BEI. - The chairman and members of the BEI shall each receive an honorarium of one thousand pesos (P1,000.00) per day but not to exceed three thousand pesos (P3,000.00). In addition, they shall be entitled to service credits for each day of service (Day before the elections, Election day and Day after Elections. Support Staff shall receive five hundred pesos (P 500.00) per day but not to exceed one thousand five hundred pesos (P1,500.00).

QUESTION: Will the BEI get honoraria on the days of training, and on the day of testing three days before elections? Will the BEI be in charge of watching the PCOS machines and the ballot boxes after testing until election day, and will they get paid for watching them?

SEC. 17. Rights and duties of watchers (of political parties) -

c) Take photographs of the proceedings and incidents, if any, during the voting, counting of votes, as well as of the generated election returns and ballot boxes;

QUESTION: So is this an exception to taking photographs by voters? Can watchers also use sound recorders? or video-sound recorders?

SEC. 17. d) File a protest against any irregularity or violation of law which they believe may have been committed by the BEI or by any of its members or by any person;

e) Obtain from the BEI a certificate as to the filing of such protest and the resolution thereof;

QUESTION: Where is the list of irregularities or violations of law (AES law) that the watchers can use as basis for protest? If the BEI helps a voter feed his ballot to the PCOS, is that a violation of law? If the BEI feeds the ballot instead of allowing the voter to feed the ballot himself, is that a violation of law?

SEC. 17. f) Be furnished, upon request, with a certificate of votes cast for the candidates, duly signed and thumb marked by the chairman and all members of the BEI.

QUESTION: Will this certificate be generated by the PCOS machine, or will the BEI manually copy this certificate from the print out of the precinct election return made by the PCOS machine? What if the BEI makes mistakes copying from the print out, which is a very likely possibility? Why not just allow the watchers to copy the CF card (back up made by the PCOS machine) using the watchers' own CF card readers?

SEC. 17. The watchers representing the dominant majority and dominant minority pafties fielding candidates shall, if available, affix their signatures and thumbmarks in the election returns.

QUESTION: Will they also digitally sign the internal copy of the precinct election return, which is the basis of canvassing at the higher levels? Who will provide them with CA-certified signing keys (private-public key pair)? Is not digital signing by BEI and watchers in accordance with the spirit and substance of RA-9369?

SEC. 18. Election forms, documents and supplies,

QUESTION: Where are the 50 pieces of felt-tip pens that the voters will use to mark their choices on the ballot? Where are the envelopes or pen holders for holding these felt-tip pens? I read the entire list, and did not see any mention of felt-tip pens.

SEC. 18. Election forms, documents and supplies,

A35 Certificate of Challenge or Protest and Decision of the BEI, 10 pcs
A39 Oath of Voter Challenqe for Illeqal Acts, 10 pcs
A40 Oath of Identification of Challenqed Voter, 10 pcs

QUESTION: Can the public see samples of these forms?

SEC. 21. Voting hours. - The casting of votes shall start at seven o'clock in the morning and shall end at six o'clock in the evening of election day.

If at six o'clock there are still voters within thirty (30) meters in front of the polling place who have not yet cast their votes, voting shall continue but only to allow said voters to cast their votes without interruption.

QUESTION: If the voters are queued up in front of the polling place waiting to feed their accomplished ballots into the PCOS machine, but some voters in the queue are standing in queue but beyond the 30 meters limit, will these voters be allowed to cast their votes?

SEC. 22. Place of voting, - Voters shall cast their votes in the polling place designated by the Commission. The Poster Indicating Precinct Number (A3) shall be prominently posted near or at the door of the polling place.

QUESTION: Will voters be assigned to precincts in the same school or basketball court or polling center where they were assigned to in the previous years? Do voters have to transfer to a different address to look for the new aggregated precinct assignments?

SEC. 24. Challenge against ittegal voters, - Any voter or watcher may challenge any person offering to vote for:
a) Not being registered;
b) Using the name of another; or
c) Suffering from an existing disqualification.
In such case, the BEI shall satisfy itself as to whether or not the ground for the challenge is true by requiring proof of registration, identity or qualification. The BEI shall identify the voter through his photograph, fingerprint, or specimen signatures in the VRR or EDCVL. In the absence of any of the above-mentioned proof of identity, any member of the BEI may identify under oath a voter, and such act shall be reflected in the Minutes.

QUESTION: Will the BEI be given training to match voter fingerprint with the fingerprint on record? Does this not require expert training? Or will they be provided fingerprint matching computers to help them do a computerized matching of fingerprints, instead?

SEC. 27. Rules to be obserued during the voting. - During the voting, the BEI shall see to it that:
a) Voters shall vote in the order of their arrival in the polling place;

QUESTION: What does the term "voters shall vote in the order of their arrival" mean exactly? Does this mean they will be given a ballot and allowed to accomplish their ballot in the order of arrival, and then after successfully filling out their ballots, they will be allowed to queue up to feed their ballots into the PCOS machine in the order that they finish accomplishing their ballots? Or does this mean that they will be allowed to queue to feed their accomplished ballots to the PCOS machine in the order of arrival?

SEC. 27. c) No person carrying any firearm or any other deadly weapon, except those expressly authorized by the Commission, shall enter the polling place;

QUESTION: Are pointed metallic objects that are not allowed when checking into local and international airports part of the list of deadly weapons? Is a three-inch Swiss army knife a deadly weapon. Are nail clippers, or small scissors, or small twissors considered deadly weapons?

SEC. 27. e) The ballot box shall remain locked during voting.

QUESTION: What if the PCOS machine jams or otherwise malfunctions, so that computerized elections can not continue, will the ballot box be opened so that voters can deposit their ballots into the open ballot box, in preparation for manual counting? How will computer-less manual counting be done?

SEC. 28. Voter Verifiability of His Choices (Not in the General Instructions).

QUESTION: Will the voter be allowed to verify how the PCOS machine appreciated his ballot? Will the PCOS machine show on the LCD touch screen or print on the paper-tape printout a listing of the candidates which the PCOS interpreted as his vote marks (50% or greater shading)? Will the PCOS machine give the voter the choice to agree or disagree with the PCOS appreciation of his vote marks on the ballot?

SEC. 28. Persons allowed inside the polling place. - Only the following persons shall be allowed inside the polling place:

e) Voters casting their votes;
f) Voters waiting for their turn to cast their vote;

QUESTION: Voters cast their votes in several steps: (1) BEI examines their voters list and on finding the voter's name, does the usual recording of the voter and hands the ballot and felt-tip pen to the voter, (2) Voter goes to secrecy desk to accomplish his ballot (this takes the longest time), (3) Voter queues up to feed his ballot into the PCOS machine.

Will the voter be inside the polling place during all these three steps?

SEC. 28. (Continued) However, the BEI may, by a majority vote, if it deems necessary, order in writing the detail of a policeman or any peace officer for its protection or for the protection of the election documents and paraphernalia. Such order shall be entered in the Minutes. Said policeman or peace officer shall stay outside the polling place near enough to be easily called by the BEI at anytime. In no case shall the said policeman or peace officer hold any conversation with any voter or disturb or prevent or in any manner obstruct the free access of the voters to the polling place.

QUESTION: How will the BEI give the written order to the policeman, when the BEI can not leave their post, and the policemen are not allowed to stay within 50 meters of the polling place? Will the BEI have the mobile numbers of the Police Department? or of individual policemen? Will the policeman, so ordered to give protection, be given a seat outside the door of the precinct, from which location he can religiously perform his duty to watch the voting and secure the peace? Exactly what actions can the policeman do? Will all police officers be required to read these General Instructions so that they are aware of the limits of their powers?

SEC. 30. Preparation of ballots for illiterate and person with
disability/disabled voters.

No person may assist an illiterate or person with disability/disabled voter more than three (3) times, except the members of the BEI.

QUESTION: How do you count the number of times an assistor helps a voter with disability, or am I misreading this provision? Does this provision mean "no assistor may help more than three disabled persons"?

SEC. 33. Testing and Sealing of PCOS - At least three (3) days before the May 10, 2010 National and Local Elections, after due notice by the EO to all parties concerned, the BEI shall meet at the polling place to test and seal the PCOS to be used on election day,

QUESTION: What if, during the testing, the BEI discover that the wrong PCOS machine has been delivered to the precinct? Is there a way for the BEI to determine if the PCOS computer is the correct one for the precinct?

SEC. 33. Testing and Sealing of PCOS - using the following guidelines:

8. The BEI shall compare the results of the manually-prepared ER with that of the machine-generated ER.

10. If the results of both ERs are not the same, the BEI shall determine the cause of the discrepancy and undertake the necessary measures to rectify the same.

QUESTION: Are the BEIs given training to determine the cause of the discrepancy and undertake the necessary measures to rectify the same? Does this not require technical expertise which the BEI might not yet have?

SEC. 33. (Continued)
11.The BEI shall then:
a. Seal the following parts of the PCOS (etc)
b. Lock and seal the ballot box;
c. Wrap the PCOS with shrink wrap; and
d. Allow the public to secure the polling places where the counting machines are installed.

QUESTION: Is the public the correct entity to secure the polling places where the counting machines are installed? Will the PCOS machine and ballot box be bolted to the floor or bolted to some permanent immovable fixture in the room/precinct? What if someone steals the PCOS machine and ballot box? Will the BEI be responsible? Will COMELEC pay the BEI to be responsible? Is the army or police the correct entity to secure the polling places where the counting machines are installed?

SEC. 34. Preliminaries to the voting -

2) Count the ballots manually, enter in the Minutes the number of ballots; and the fact that the package of ballots and the book of voters were shown to the public with the seals intact.

QUESTIONS: (1) What if the BEI notice that the wrong ballots were delivered to his/her precinct? The BEI will see the ballots only on election day itself, so can not check beforehand if the correct ballots were delivered to his precinct. (2) What if the ballots are the correct one for the precinct, but the number of ballots is less than the number of voters in the precinct? What if the number of ballots is more than the number of voters?

SEC. 34. 3) Remove the shrink wrap cover of the PCOS and show that the seals of the memory slot, transmission port and printer cover are intact. Record in the Minutes such fact and thereafter break the seal of the printer cover. The transmission port and memory card slot shall remain sealed during the voting.

QUESTION: What if any of the seals is broken? Will the BEI ask for a new PCOS machine, and redo the testing done three days earlier, using the new PCOS machine?

SEC 34. 8) The IT-capable member of the BEI (Operator) shall select "START" from the Main Menu. The geographic assignment (province, city/municipality, barangay, polling center and cluster precinct) of the PCOS will then be displayed on the screen. The Operator shall press the *INITIALITE VOTE COUNTERS" option of the PCOS,

QUESTION: What if the any of the geographical assignment of the PCOS is wrong, indicating that the PCOS machine was switched during storage? Will the BEI ask for a new PCOS machine, test it, and use it for the day?

SEC. 35. Manner of obtaining ballots. - The voter shall approach the support staff in-charge of the precinct, give his name, address, together with the other data concerning his person

The support staff shall verify if the name of the voter is in the PCVL. If the name of the voter is in the PCVL, his identity shall then be established through his photograph or specimen signatures in the Voter's Registration Record, unless he is identified under oath by any member of the BEI.

QUESTION: WHat if the voter has a valid registration as proven by his voter's ID, but his name is not in the PCVL? Will the voter be disenfranchised?

SEC. 36. Manner of voting. Voting shall be conducted in the following manner:

a) The voter shall, using a ballot secrecy folder and the marking pen provided by the COMELEC, fill his ballot by shading completely the oval beside the names of the candidates of his choice.

QUESTIONS/SUGGESTIONS:

(1) Recently, the COMELEC announced that it will allow 50% shading as indication of a vote. Since the voter is not a computer, he can not really tell if his shading is 50% or more, since he is just using his naked eye, and for him, what might be 50% may actually be only 47-49% shading for the computer. The same reasong holds if the COMELEC requires 100% full shade. I suggest that if COMELEC decides to use 50% shading, that any shading greater than 40% be considered as 50% or more shading. The 40% may actually not be enough, but that is better than requiring exactly 50% or more.

(2) If the voter discovers while filling up his ballot that he overvoted for the position of senator, or provincial board, or municipal council, or for any other position, why can't he use a dry corrector tape to cover one of his shadings, or maybe cut out one of his ovals, in order to reduce the number of votes to the correct number.

SEC. 37. Rejected ballots procedure - Ballots may be rejected by the PCOS during the scanning. In the event of rejected ballot, the PCOS shall deposit the ballot into the rejected ballot cnmpartment of the ballot box. The voter shall not be issued with a replacement ballot.

QUESTION: Is it possible for a duly registered voter, voting in his assigned precinct, and using a ballot issued by the authorized BEI, is it possible for such registered voter to have his ballot rejected as invalid? Is the invalid ballot algorithm of the PCOS machine tested to be 100% foolproof? What assurance does the voter have that he will not be disenfranchised because of a legitimate ballot appreciated as invalid ballot?

SEC. 39. Counting of ballots and transmission of results; Procedure,

a) At the end of voting and before the start of counting of votes, the procedure of validating the ibutton security key and PINs stated in Section 32, no.4 herein shall be performed.

QUESTION: There is no Section 32 no. 4 in this document (GI).

QUESTION: Preparatory to transmission of the internal copy of the precinct election return (ER) to the municipal CCS computer and to the national COMELEC CCS computer, the BEI is required by law (RA-9369) to digitally sign the said internal copy of the precinct ER. From Smartmatic's Financial Proposal to COMELEC, it is evident that Smartmatic will generate all the private-public key pairs (signing keys) to be used by all BEI for digital signing of all the ERs. These signing keys will be issued to the BEI by Smartmatic on election day itself, and will be issued to the BEI by position and not to the BEI by name. That is, whoever reports as BEI chairman of Precinct 0559A of Mayamot, Antipolo, will be issued the signing keys of the chairman. The standard for CA-certified public keys (X.509 standard) is to issue the signing keys to named persons and not to positions. The question is: since the BEI will be using signing keys that belong to Smartmatic, does signing the ER with these keys constitute digital signing by Smartmatic and not by the BEI personnel? Is this not, therefore, a violation of law?

SEC. 39. (Continued) Before opening the "Close Voting" option in the main menu, the operator shall remove the seal in the transmission port of the PCOS to connect the transmission cable (cellular modem) into the transmission port.

QUESTION: Since only one cellular modem will be used by all PCOS machines in the polling center, before the BEI can attach the cellular modem to his PCOS machine, he has to wait for the BEI of the PCOS machine which is assigned to use the cellular modem first, he has to wait for this BEI to finish transmitting first, before he can take possession of the modem for use in his precinct. (1) Is the order of use of the one cellular modem by all PCOS machines in the polling place determined at random? (2) What if there is failure of transmission because of lack of cellular signal, as happens during times of peak usage? (3) How long must the BEI wait before he can declare a failure of transmission?

SEC. 41. Shutting Down of the PCOS. - After printing of all reports and transmission of precinct results to all destinations, the following steps shall be undeftaken:
a) In the main menu/ the Operator shall press the SHUTDOWN option;
b) ...
c) ...
d) The PCOS shall automatically shutdown.

QUESTION: When will the back up CF card be made? Will a back up be made? Can the watchers copy this back up CF card using card readers that they themselves provide?

My CE-160 Class in Ateneo (Nov 19 09)

2009-11-19T00:08:00.000-08:00

This is my CE-160 class in Ateneo for the second semester of school year 2009-2010. CE-160 is Automata Theory with Compiler Design for computer engineering students. I have exactly nine students, and this is probably the smallest class that I have ever taught in 32 years. Most of them are either BS Applied Physics or Applied Chemistry, with major in Applied Computational Science. These are nine of the brightest students on campus, because you do not get into any of our allied engineering programs unless you are smart.

My daughter used to tell me this joke about engineering schools. She says that engineering is Marlboro Country -- all you find here are men and horses. This picture shows that Ateneo CE-160 is not Marlboro Country. On the contrary, when I'm teaching this class, I get the feeling that God gave me these good-looking young men and women to teach, in order to inspire me to teach, so that I can inspire them to learn.

God bless these children, and may they all get grades of A!!!

My CE-160 Class in Ateneo (Nov 19 09)

2009-11-19T00:06:00.000-08:00

Christmas Spirit in U.P. Computer Science (Nov 19 09)

2009-11-18T13:57:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, an electrician put up a Christmas Tree of electric light bulbs in front of the U.P.Alumni Engineers Centennial Hall that houses the Department of Computer Science and Engineering Library II. The tree is so simple yet so elegant in its simple beauty. It quickly became popular among students, and in the late afternoons, in the dying hours of daylight, when the darkness of night try to overcome the brightness of day, we see student groups taking their pictures in front of the tree.

But this photo opportunity is a challenging one. The automatic exposure mechanisms of most digital cameras would defeat the darkening effect that you want to put in your picture, in order to show the beauty of the lighted tree. The Canon 450D on auto-exposure setting recommends 1/8 second at f/4.0. I went to manual and took the shoot at 1/10 second at f/5.6, and I got the desired effect of highlighting the tree in front of a slightly darker building. This is the magic of modern digital photography!

Ateneo to Remember (Nov 19 09)

2009-11-18T00:25:00.000-08:00

I joined Ateneo de Manila in 1977 (or 1979?) as soon as I got my M.S. in mathematics. At that time, the college complex included Xavier Hall (Admin, Registrar), Kostka Hall (English, Humanities), Berchmans Hall (Mathematics and Management Engineering), Gonzaga Hall (Biology, Physics), Schmidt Hall (Chemistry), PIPAC Building (Philippine Institute of Pure and Applied Chemistry), Belarmine Hall (Psychology, European Languages), and the old Rizal Library (as yet without the extension building).

The new buildings came later: Colayco Hall (now MV Pangilinan Hall), Faura Hall, Dela Costa Hall, Social Sciences Building, Rizal Library Extension, Science Education Complex (A, B, C), PLDT Convergent Technologies Center, John Gokongwei School of Management, Mateo Ricci Hall, Church of the Gesu, and the First Pacific Hall housing the new Rizal Library.

Faura Hall was built at about the time when I got my PhD in Mathematics. I remember a year when an intensity seven earthquake was shaking Faura Hall up-and-down, instead of the usual sideways shaking motion of normal earthquakes. Except for superficial cracks in non-load-bearing parts, Faura is essentially undamaged, thanks to the reliable construction techniques of that time. At the time of the quake, Faura was housing Mathematics, Computer Science, and Physics.

Today, I'm very proud that Ateneo constructed three important buildings, monuments to Ateneo's dedication to academic excellence.

The First Pacific Hall that houses the new Rizal Library is probably the biggest single library building in the entire country. The Library houses the main library's collection of books, periodicals, Internet access stations, etc.

The Manny V. Pangilinan Center for Student Leadership houses the student organizations. It is the most beautiful student center in any Filipino university today.

The Mateo Ricci Hall is a student study hall. There are individual study tables, group study rooms, a coffee shop, outlets for student laptops, wifi hotspots, etc. I believe that it is the only one of its kind in our country. The building is named after the Jesuit mathematician Mateo Ricci, and is a testament to Ateneo's dedication to academic excellence.

So if you are thinking of a university which will give you a good Jesuit education that emphasizes academic excellence, maybe Ateneo de Manila is the school for you.

KDE Founder and Smartmatic: Comparison

2009-11-06T23:30:00.000-08:00

On November 6, 2009, in Germany, KDE founder Matthias Ellrich received the decoration German Federal Cross of Merit for his contributions to free software. KDE is one of the earliest graphical desktop user environments (GUI) for Linux and other open source operating systems, and is one of the most powerful and popular GUIs. In Germany, they give highest honors to people who open source their computer programs.

In contrast, in the Philippines, COMELEC will pay computer packaging and marketing firm Smartmatic the amount of PHP7.2-PHP11.4 billion for supplying election hardware and software with source code that no Filipino programmer will ever see, and that Smartmatic and COMELEC consistently refuses to submit to source code review as required by law. In the Philippines we reward companies who break the law.

That is one difference between Germany and the Philippines.

Go figure that out!

sha1sum as Program Integrity Verifier for the PCOS and CCS Pograms (Nov 05 09)

2009-11-04T09:30:00.000-08:00

I am a Linux user. Linux is the best operating system for techie people. It is so good an operating system that even the Smartmatic PCOS PROGRAM runs on uClinux, and the Smartmatic CCS program runs on SuSE Linux. The computers that we should trust to run our national and local elections run on Linux!

Linux comes in several flavors, called distributions. A distribution consists of the Linux operating system kernel, together with a selection of utilities that, together with the kernel, makes a complete usable operating system. My favorite Linux distributions are Ubuntu (a derivative of Debian) and Fedora (from which RedHat is derived). The trouble with any Linux distribution is that Linux and the utilities are updated (source code improvements are made) on a regular basis, and the distributions are also updated to catch up with source code improvements. As a result of these improvements, a new version of Fedora, version 12, is coming in a few days, even before I could get familiar with the great features of version 11. So I have decided to change my Fedora distribution to CentOS, an enterprise Linux distribution that is based on RedHat, one that does not get updated as frequently as Fedora. We say that CentOS is built upon a reasonably stable source code base.

I decided to download the CentOS version 5.4 installer DVD from the Argonne National Laboratories mirror at the URL:

http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/centos/5.4/isos/i386/CentOS-5.4-i386-bin-DVD.iso

The download took a few hours, since the DVD is about 3.9GB in size. To make sure that there were no errors in downloading, I also downloaded the sha1 hash/checksum file:

http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/centos/5.4/isos/i386/sha1sum.txt

This sha1sum.txt file contains the sha1 hash values of the CD/DVD files that you can download from Argonne. The specific sha1 hash value that I am interested in is the line in that file that reads:

d2b36d3f017b2684ac920fab87aaf741bba16ca8  CentOS-5.4-i386-bin-DVD.iso

Now I need to make sure that the DVD that I downloaded does not contain any errors, that I downloaded a correct copy of the CentOS installation DVD. In order to check the correctness of the downloaded DVD (verify the integrity of my download), I just run the "sha1sum" program as follows:

sha1sum CentOS-5.4-i386-bin-DVD.iso

After some wait, the sha1sum program prints out the sha1 hash value of the DVD as follows:

d2b36d3f017b2684ac920fab87aaf741bba16ca8 CentOS-5.4-i386-bin-DVD.iso

Comparing with the sha1 hash value from the file sha1sum.txt, I am able to confirm that my DVD installer is correct and is an authentic copy of the original CentOS installer from Argonne. Now I am happy that I can install CentOS on my laptop.

How does this integrity verifier work for our election programs: PCOS and CCS? This is my suggestion, which COMELEC may or may not implement. After all this is just a suggestion. After the election programs that will run on the PCOS and CCS computers have been source-code reviewed and approved by the Filipino IT community, and after successful testing by SysTest Labs, in front of representatives from all political parties, SysTest Labs will compute the sha1 hash values of the PCOS and CCS programs, using the Linux sha1sum program as illustrated earlier. These two hash values will be printed out and given to all watchers and BEI and BOC personnel. Then on election day, to verify that the programs that have been approved are the ones running on the PCOS and CCS computers, the BEI and BOC personnel will just run the sha1sum program on the PCOS and CCS election programs, respectively. If the sha1sum program prints out a sha1 hash value that is equal to the sha1 hash value of the approved programs given out by SysTest Labs, then the PCOS and CCS programs will be accepted as authentic, since they pass the integrity verifier.

With a program integrity verifier like this, confidence in automated elections will be enhanced, and people will start to trust COMELEC.

The Making of Champions (Nov 02 09)

2009-11-01T13:29:00.000-08:00

The world's best collegiate computer programmers are usually decided in February or April of each year in the World Finals of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC). In February 1-6, 2010, the World Finals will be held in snow-covered city of Harbin, China, at the Harbin Engineering University. To qualify to join the prestigious World Finals, a team of three college students currently enrolled in a university (not exceeding five years residence from time of entrance to university) must train under a faculty coach, and come out on top of one of the regional programming contests. In 2009 the Asian regional contests were (will be) held in 15 universities in Tokyo, Hsinchu, Dhaka, Manila, Gwalior-Kanpur, Shanghai, Amritapuri, Harbin, Hefei, Tehran, Wuhan, Ningbo, Phuket, Seoul, and Jakarta, The world's best collegiate programmers usually come from Eastern Europe (Russia) and Asia (China).

On Friday, October 23, 2009, at the Asia-Manila regional programming contest of the ACM-ICPC at Ateneo de Manila University, 55 collegiate programming teams from Hongkong, Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines, met and competed for the Asia-Manila regional championship. Ten problems were given, to be solved by each team of three programmers in five hours, using one computer shared by the three team members. The team that solves the most problems in the least time becomes regional champions. The problems were varied, including convex hull computation, composition of polynomials, taxicab distance, expressing a number as a sum of consecutive integers, partial fractions, fitting a quadratic, and classifying typhoons. The contest started late at 10:00 AM and was ended at 3:00 PM. The top six universities were:

1. UP Diliman (regional champions)
2. Ho Chi Min City University of Science
3. National University of Singapore
4. Hongkong University of Science and Technology
5. University of Hongkong
6. Ateneo de Manila University

The champion team from UP Diliman, named "Mga SOGO ni E.T." , consisted of team members Marte Raphael Soliza, Kevin Charles Atienza, and John Eddie Ayson. Their faculty coaches are Dr. Fidel Nemenzo and Mr. Eric "E.T." Tambasacan.

The champion UPD team will join the World Finals in 2010 in Harbin, China. This is only the third time that a Filipino team will be joining the World Finals. Earlier in 2005, a team from Ateneo de Manila University joined the World Finals in Shanghai, China, and in 2006 another team from Ateneo de Manila University joined the World Finals in San Antonio, Texas.

Karen Continues Piano Repair (Oct 30 09)

2009-10-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

My daughter Karen, in the process of cleaning our Yamaha upright piano after it was immersed in Ondoy floodwater, is learning many new things about how the piano works. For example. she learned what each felt damper does and there are many of these felt dampers, what each pedal does and how the pedals differ between a grand piano and an upright piano. She has also learned that the correct material to use to glue wood to wood and felt to wood is Elmer's Carpenter's Glue. She learned how to remove and clean each hammer, and how to remove and clean each key. She numbered each component that did not have a number, so that she can return them to their original positions. She learned that the same diluted bleach solution that they use as anti-bacterial in the MBB lab at UP can be used as anti-fungal for the Yamaha piano.

She also learned the compact economical Japanese design that does not compromise quality -- how the Japanese designers diagonally crossed the long strings over the short ones to conserve space without compromising string length -- without compromising sound quality. She also learned the the Japanese used a synthetic ivory substitute for the keys, called "ivorite", which is actually smoother and does not chip as easily. She concluded that the Yamaha is the best value for money upright piano that one can buy in today's market. Of course, the overpriced Steinway is still the world's best grand piano, but the Yamaha is not so far behind in quality, if not in price.

So Karen is learning to do a decent job of cleaning our Yamaha. She does not intend to make this her vocation, since she is already too busy with her MBB wet-lab job, programming in C for plasmid 5-tuple binding amino-acids, playing the electronic keyboard, and learning the violin.

Practial Voter's Guide (Oct 25 09)

2009-10-24T13:36:00.000-07:00

Practical Voters' Guide to Election 2010

1. Verify your voter registration status at the COMELEC office in the town/city where you reside. And you should do this before the deadline on October 31, 2009.

a. If you are already registered and you voted in the last 2007(?) national elections then you are probably still in the voters' list. But even then, you should check that your name has not been accidentally removed. You can also check your new precinct number assignment. You can get your new precinct number, even if the actual address of that precinct number is still unknown.

b. If you are already registered, but did not vote in the two most recent national elections (2004 and 2007), then you are probably not in the voters' list anymore. You should go to the COMELEC office of the town/city where you currently reside and re-register there. Bring two picture IDs issued by the government (SSS ID, GSIS ID, Taxpayer ID, passport, etc) or issued by your employer or school, a proof of date of birth (birth certificate), and a proof of address (a recent Meralco bill, or mobile phone bill).

c. If you are a new voter who has never registered before, then you must register for the first time. Proceed as in step (b) above.

2. One day before election day, go to the school where your precinct is located. Remember that one aggregated precinct has anywhere from 400-1000 voters with an average of 600 voters. The voters' lists will be posted outside the door of the precinct (classroom). Looking for your name in the list, even if you know your precinct number, might take a while, so you should do this before actual election day. If you do not find your name in the voters' list in all the precincts of the polling center (school), you should call the COMELEC emergency number (please paste telephone number here).

3. On actual election day, go to your assigned precinct early. Do not wait for the last hour (5:00 pm - 6:00 pm), because if you do, you probably will miss your chance to vote. Sayang naman ang boto niyo. Bring with you the following:

a. Your voter's ID or if you do not yet have an ID, your copy of your voter's registration form.

b. A felt-tip pen (medium point). Any brand will do. Do not bring ball pen or pencil. The precinct will have a supply of 50 felt-tip pens to be shared by 400-1000 voters. After voting, you might want to donate your felt-tip pen to the precinct, because the 50 might not be enough.

c. A white corrector tape (dry version). The COMELEC and Smartmatic do not want the voter to make changes in their ballot using white corrector tape (dry version), because the correction might still be fresh and sticky when you feed your ballot into the PCOS machine, causing paper jam, and preventing subsequent voters from casting their votes. If you bring a dry corrector tape, you will have to make corrections at your own risk.

4. How to vote:

a. Proceed to the table where the BEI (Board of Election Inspectors) are seated, show them your voter's ID or voter's copy of the registration form.

b. The BEI will check if your name is on their list, and if so, will give you your official ballot. The ballot will be 20 inches to less than 30 inches long, so you must handle the ballot carefully to prevent accidental tearing. They will also give you a felt-tip pen which you will use for filling out your ballot.

c. Upon receiving your ballot and pen, go to one of the secrecy booths (actually this will be a student chair with a little desk for writing, which will be provided with a 8.5 inch x 13 inch folder for "cover", so that the next voter can not see your choices).

d. To vote for a candidate, shade the oval next to the candidate's name with the felt-tip pen. Make sure that the oval is completely shaded with no white left, and that the shading does not go out of the oval. Do not over-vote, that is, vote for only one president, one vice-president, twelve senators, etc.

e. Before going to the PCOS computer to cast your vote, review your work to make sure that ovals are completely shaded with no shading outside the oval. Also make sure there are no accidental stray marks on the bar code area of the ballot or anywhere else, as these stray marks could invalidate your ballot. If you find that you overvoted for a given position (say you selected more than 12 senators), and if you decide to use your dry corrector tape to cover your extra choice, remember that you will do this at your own risk.

f. After reviewing your ballot, and if you are already satisfied with your choices, go the PCOS computer to cast your vote. There might be a queue, so you have to take your proper place in the queue. Filipinos know how to respect the rights of others, so let us not jump queue. There is no special queue for senior citizens, so they just have to queue up like all the others.

g. When it is your turn to feed your ballot into the PCOS machine, remember that there is a proper orientation for feeding the ballot. The ballot has two edges, the 8.5 inch short edge, and the 20-30 inch long edge. You must insert the 8.5 inch short edge first. It does not matter which of the two short edges (top or bottom) is inserted first, and it does not matter which face is up (the face containing the national candidates or the face containing the local candidates). The PCOS computer can read any orientation as long as the 8.5 inch top or bottom is inserted first.

h. The PCOS machine will finish reading and interpreting your ballot in about 30 seconds. Do not leave yet, wait until the little LCD display to the right of the PCOS computer says that your ballot has been successfully read. If he PCOS computer does not show you on the LCD display a list of candidates that you actually voted for, go to the BEI and register your complaint in writing. Beforehand, you might want to prepare the following statement and sign it, and have the BEI sign that he/she received your complaint:

I would like to formally register my complaint with COMELEC, through its BEI staff of precinct no. ______, municipality of _________, that the PCOS computer did not show me on the LCD screen, or in printed form, or in any other manner, the actual list of candidates that I voted for in my ballot, as required by RA-9369 Section 7 (Section 6 Minimum System Capabilities) Item (n), that states:

Provide the voter a system of verification to find out whether or not the machine has registered his choice;

Voter's Name _______________________ Voter's ID No. __________

Complaint received by: ________________________________ (BEI)
Date:_______ Time: _______

Make two copies and sign both. One copy goes to COMELEC, and the other will be your receipt.

i. That is all there is to computerized voting. After successfully completing the eight steps (a)-(h), do like my wife says. Pray that the PCOS computer has not been internally rigged to cheat for the favorites or COMELEC and Smartmatic. CenPEG, the NASSA-CBCP, and other cause-oriented groups and NGOs, who have been labeled as fear-mongerers, do not have the tools to do external hacking via the network. If the PCOS and REIS computers have been internally rigged or externally hacked, it will be because of people "inside", not people "outside".

Boutin's Election Questions (Oct 19 09)

2009-10-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

Here are my answers to questions submitted by Mr. Matthew Boutin, a student of Ateneo:

-In your August 4 Filipino Voices blog entry entitled "Election 2010: Public Counting & Code Review" you note that the PCOS units will not reveal to the voter how it read their ballot because of COMELEC imposed time constraints, thus violating the Omnibus Election Code. You also suggest that issues involving source code review in a controlled environment interfere with the voters right to know. Do you you consider there issues alone worthy of putting a halt to the upcoming automation, issues to be resolved, or some other level of seriousness?

The sentiment of the Filipino public, I believe, is that everyone wants computerized elections to succeed. I also personally like computerized elections to succeed. I believe, though, that COMELEC should seriously rethink its stand on NOT implementing the "voter verifiability of his choices" feature of the PCOS. I also believe that there are some required features that the PCOS should have which it does not have and which only source code review will reveal. I believe that COMELEC must allow source code review NOW, while there is still time for review, so that the public can see the conformance or non-conformance of the PCOS to RA-9369 and the COMELEC Terms of Reference (ToR). I do not believe, though, that we should stop computerized elections, because that is the sentiment of the people.

With the destruction caused by Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng to the schools, basketball courts and other places that will be used for precincts in Metro Manila and Northern Luzon, I have doubts that COMELEC will be able to do even 50% computerization of the entire country.

-Are these, or other issues, you biggest concerns about the voting automation?

These two are some of the important concerns. There are others, about 30 vulnerabilities in all. Check the website of the Center for People Empowerment in Governance for the list of 30 vulnerabilities, http://www.cenpeg.org/. Top among these vulnerabilites is the fact that Smartmatic will generate all private keys that will be used by the BEI staff for digitally signing the precinct election returns. Ideally, each BEI staff should generate his own private-public key pair, then password the private key so that only the BEI staff himself can access the private key for signing, and then have the public key certified by Smartmatic or by another certificate authority. But under Bid Bulletin No. 10, Smartmatic will generate all private-public key pairs of all BEI staff, and the BEI staff will only get their signing keys (private keys) on election day. This is bull$#!+, because it gives Smartmatic power to change all precinct ERs, then re-sign them with the private keys (which they have) and pass this modified precinct ER as if it was the original.

-Do you feel that COMELEC skimped out on buying high enough quality machinery for automation (I am thinking of the scanner which you mentioned is only able to read a limited number of shades of color)?

The original AES (automated election system) manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems of Canada consisted of the Democracy Suite Ballot Marking Device (BMD) and the Democracy Suite Image Cast Ballot Scanning Device (the PCOS computer).

See http://www.vote-ny.com/english/transcripts-sequoia/.

The BMD+PCOS combination should be ideal, but Smartmatic supplied us only the PCOS computer. In the NY primaries, voters used the BMD to select their choices using a touch screen, and then the BMD prints the ballot using perfectly shaded ovals (the computer always shades the ovals in the perfect way it knows, and in no other way). So even if the PCOS computer can only read 16 shades of gray, that is sufficient, because the BMD computer printed the voter's choices, and the PCOS computer has been programmed to read THAT perfectly 100% of the time.

In the Philippine's case, 48 million voters will troop to the polls, and will fill out their ballots manually, using 48 million different styles of shading. You can not imagine how difficult the job of COMELEC will be, trying the customize the "% threshhold" that the PCOS computer will use to decide whether the shading is a vote or not.

-In it's September 10 decision upholding the validity of the COMELEC-Smartmatic/TIM contract, the Philippine Supreme Court asserted that PCOS successfully met minimum system capabilites standards with the use of the COMELEC 26 item/check list criteria listed below... (I suspect you are familiar with them, but I will include them for ready reference) (Test criteria clipped) Do you feel that these are sufficient and strict enough criteria to determine if the PCOS units can get the job done? Would you like to see any changes or additional testing of the machines, and if so, what?

I was member of the CenPEG team of observers during the SBAC testing (Special Bids and Awards Committee). First, the team of testers were not software test engineers but lay employees of COMELEC and people from Smartmatic. Second, whenever SBAC felt that the PCOS computer will fail in a test, the testers modified the test a bit, to ensure that the PCOS will pass. For example, the PCOS is known not to read pencil and ball-pen marks on the ballot. So all the tests were done using only felt-tip pen, but the COMELEC ToR specifies that the PCOS must be able to read pencil and ball pen marks also. Little mods like this erode your faith in the correctness of the SBAC testing.

-Do you feel that it is misplaced priorities to put automation in place when vote buying and other forms of fraud could sway elections without tampering with the PCOS units at all? Should COMELEC and the government deal with basic fraud and corruption before turning to automation to improve the election system?

I should not answer this question, because vote buying is not a problem unique to computerized elections, but also exist in manual elections. Ask someone else with more experience than I. Maybe, Mr. Bobby Tuazon, whom I cc'd here, could answer this question with more authority.

-Do you feel that COMELEC can manage the large number of laptops, other computers, and technology it will need for a successful automation in time for the elections?

COMELEC is essentially a team of lawyers who are not computer-techies. It depends on Smartmatic for EVERYTHING regarding computers and the computerization of elections. So outside of customization of data for elections (format of ballot, how many to print per precinct, what % shading to consider a vote, what are the names of candidates, etc.) everything else is the job of Smartmatic. This includes testing, warehousing, transportation, security, etc of the computers. For this reason, Atty Harry Roque claimed that COMELEC has surrendered its mandate to manage the computerized elections to Smartmatic.

-Do you feel that the potential scenarios for an election failure are serious enough to call off automation if it was possible to do so?

There will be no failure of elections. In places where there is no electricity or no cellular signal (so no transmission capability), there will be manual elections. In places where there is electricity and cellular signal, where computerized election is possible, if at any step of the computerized election process, there is a breakdown of computer or transmission capability, then the computerized election will just continue in a manual way. The ballot box will be opened, and the votes counted manually. How this will be done within the context of allowable COMELEC regulations will still be threshed out by COMELEC's implementing rules and regulations (IRRs), which COMELEC has been delaying for some time. I think their problem is, since computerized election is so unfamiliar to them, reverting to manual from computerized election is even more strange, and thus the long delay in the release of the IRR. Mr. Bobby Tuazon might want to add to this.

-Do you consider the PCOS technology too complicated for poll workers and the voting public?

For the poll workers and the voters in the cities and big towns, who are familiar with computer technology, there will be no problem. The problem will be in the far off rural areas, where people have not even seen a fax machine. But voter education can solve this problem, and COMELEC must start its voter education soon.

-Do you have another other thoughts on or points about automation that are not covered in my questions or I may yet be ignorant to?

Check the 30 vulnerabilities in the CenPEG web site, http://www.cenpeg.org/.

Karen Cleans Our Piano (Oct 19 09)

2009-10-18T16:51:00.000-07:00

On September 26, 2009, Typhoon Ondoy submerged our piano in flood water which was chest-high in our sala area, where the piano was located. The piano is a Yamaha No. U3 made by Nippon Gakki. The wood frame, metal frame, and wood sounding board seem to have survived the flood without much damage, but the keys, hammers and actuators have all turned moldy after several days. We should call a competent repair man to put the unit in working condition again, but while we are waiting for the repair man, Karen and I decided to open the unit. Fortunately, piano construction is modular, and it is easy to get to the moldy parts for cleaning.

Karen, being a molecular biologist (biochemistry, microbiology, etc), knows how to remove molds. She took one cup Zonrox bleach (5.25% sodium hypochlorite) and mixed this with 9 cups water to get her fungicide that will kill the molds, without removing the paintwork on the piano.

When the repairman comes to look at the unit, the molds will be gone, and the piano will be repairable again.

Wish us luck!

Caring for Your Netbook Keyboard (Oct 13 09)

2009-10-12T16:18:00.000-07:00

In September 2007, when the MSI Wind U100 netbook first came out, the model that had 1GB ram and 80GB disk was selling for about PHP21-24 thousand. My daughters, Abigail and Karen, both wanted the white-colored version, but the only color available from PC Corner in Gilmore was "lady pink". Since Abigail was going to Reims, France, for her Erasmus Mundus masteral studies, she wanted one right away, no matter what color. Karen also had to make do with the pink one. The Wind U100 is a very nice model for women, since it is very portable, light enough and small enough to put inside a medium-sized woman's handbag, together with all other womanly stuff -- hair brushes, pad paper, notebooks, make-up kit, etc.

The younger daughter, Karen, abused this portability feature of her Wind. On occasion, she would place pad paper on the keyboard, close the netbook with the pad paper between screen and keyboard, and stuff the Wind into her bag. After several months, the poor fragile keyboard would not work anymore, and Karen had to bring her Wind to the repair center, Net Essentials, near Boni Serrano Avenue in Quezon City.

Net Essentials
#11 8th Avenue near corner Boni Serrano
Cubao, Quezon City
439-3310
421-3795

The repair people are quite efficient, and the cost of a new replacement keyboard was less than PHP2 thousand. Now, I think Karen will be very careful how she handles her MSI Wind.

Notre Dame of Marbel Class '63 (Oct 11 09)

2009-10-10T13:57:00.000-07:00

I am a member of Notre Dame of Marbel Boys High School Class of 1963. At that time NDM had a Boys' Department, a Girls' Department, and a College Department. I think NDM is now NDM University.

In NDM, I learned many things. My first encounter with Algebra and the wonders of the variables x, y, and z had a mesmerizing effect on me. Physics with Bro Paul Johannes, on the grass and under the trees was actually better than inside the classroom. Even Geometry, which everyone feared, was enjoyable, even if everyone was trying to hide from our teacher whenever he shot a question to the class. On Mondays in Religion class, you had to recite (from memory) the previous Sunday's gospel, and that practically made me quite familiar with the New Testament. The Marist Brothers taught us pre-Vatican-II catechism, about the commandments of God and of the Church, mortal sin and venial sin, the sacraments. The Brothers taught us how to be good persons.

I made a number good friends: Cayetano Gregorio, Juanito Aquino, Leo Estember, Eliseo Vergara, Harry Malinao, Patricio M., etc. I was even Knight of the Altar, learning the rubrics in Latin, "Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domine", etc, while serving the Passionist priests in the main cathedral and in the Barrio-1 chapel.

For the first time in my adolescent years, I discovered that there are girls on the other side of campus. In Nueva Ecija High School, where I did my first and second years, I sat next to girls, but I did not notice that they were girls. They were just simply classmates. But not so in Notre Dame of Marbel. When you separate boys from girls, they notice each other. Of course, I was too young then (15-16) and small for my age, and the magic of academic studies was more attractive than the magic of girls. And so the sexual desire got sublimated, not in the Jesuit style, but in the distinctly PMana-cum-Marist-cum-Passionist style.

Today, three classmates emailed me. Leo Estember is an Engineer in the west coast. Eliseo Vergara is also in the U.S. Evangeline de Pedro (Valedictorian of Girls' Department) also got in touch. We will be celebrating our golden anniversary homecoming in 2013, and everyone is busy getting in touch with everyone else.

We will see you in 2013, and possibly earlier!

We stand today for our Notre Dame; Loyal and true we'll always remain.

SmartBro Nameserver (Oct 11 09)

2009-10-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

I have a SmartBro microwave connection to the Internet. After the Marikina Valley flood, SmartBro disconnected my Internet service. I did not miss my emails, since I could always go to Burger King or McDo to avail of their free wifi service. Also, I lost the AC adapter (12VDC, 2A) of my Linksys wifi router; floodwater can do that to most electrical appliances. I discovered that a replacement AC adapter cost as must as a made-in-China Buffalo wifi router, and so I got the Buffalo instead. Today, I have Internet. Allelluia!

Then I found out that I could not connect to many Internet sites. I could not post to my Multiply blog site, since SmartBro could not find Multiply. Fortunately, I use Ubuntu Linux, not Windows, and am quite familiar with Linux networking. A check of the file /etc/resolv.conf revealed that SmartBro is using a local caching nameserver at 192.168.11.1. I think this nameserver is not properly configured, and so could not give the proper IP addresses of many sites.

If you are a Linux user (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, etc), I suggest that you become superuser (the su command will do the trick) and edit the file /etc/resolv.conf. After editing the file should look like:

# /etc/resolv.conf
#
domain smartbro.net
search smartbro.net
nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220
nameserver 192.168.11.1

The first two nameservers are those of OpenDNS (see www.opendns.org). OpenDNS provides free domain name service (DNS). Then save the file, and you instantly get proper name service. Now you can reach those sites that 192.168.11.1 was previously unable to reach.

Enjoy!

Source Code Review: CenPEG vs COMELEC (Oct 09 09)

2009-10-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

CenPEG, the Center for People Empowerment in Governance, finally did it. After waiting for five months since May 2009, for COMELEC to release the source code of the computer programs that will be used in the May 10, 2010 national and local elections, and after being given the run-around and subjecting to various delaying tactics, CenPEG filed on Monday Oct 9 2009, a petition for mandamus at the Supreme Court, to force COMELEC to release the source code to CenPEG and to interested political parties and groups, as mandated by law (RA-9369 Sec 12). CenPEG is represented in this petition by lawyers Koko Pimentel and Pancho Joaquin.

The text of the petition can be found here

Now it is a game of wait and see. CenPEG is hopeful that justice will prevail, and COMELEC will obey the law, and not run rings around it.

Healing the Earth - Healing the Heart (Oct 03 09)

2009-10-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

When I was teaching biology in Xavier School in San Juan, Jesuit priest Fr. Moran gave a retreat to the faculty. He showed a poster depicting us as little fish and around us are many bigger fishes. Then he showed us another poster showing us as little fish, and around us are many more little fishes, so much smaller than we are. I think the lesson that the posters is trying to depict is that we are not the most unfortunate creatures, since we can always find others less fortunate than we are. We should feel truly blessed for the gift of life that God gives us everyday we are still breathing.

I'm really quite fortunate -- I believe God has not truly abandoned me during the flood. My house was flooded to chest deep only, while two houses away, my neighbor had to climb up to the roof to stay out of the floodwater. I lost a few pets, while many families lost more than 300 parents or children. I lost one little car, while my neighbor Oafallas lost one car, two vans, one dump truck, etc. I can go on and on, and describe in so many ways how God loves me and took care of me and my family.

Whatever kind of fish we are: big or medium or small, we have to heal our wounded soul. We can't forever be hurting. So I am learning to forgive and to forget the administrators of Angat and Ipo and La Mesa for flooding my community. I will also forgive the wreckless people who throw plastic bags and styro stuff into our drains, clogging the waterways and contributing to the flooding problem of the metropolis. I am also trying to forgive myself for the lack of preparation during times of emergencies like this.

I am also fortunate that I work in a University where people care for you: for both your material and spiritual health. Today, Dean Marlu Vilches sent this message via email:

To live content with small means
to seek elegance rather than luxury
and refinement rather than fashion,
to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly,
to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart
to bear all cheerfully,
do all bravely,
await occasions,
hurry never?
in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious
grow up through the common
This is to be my symphony.
William E. Channing

As a way of contributing to the University-wide endeavor towards the rebuilding and rehabilitation of the human spirit in the midst of the recent upheaval in our community and nation, the School of Humanities begins our return to class with a paraliturgy on the theme HEALING THE EARTH, HEALING OURSELVES, prepared by the Theology Department.
Through this event, we hope to encourage students, faculty, and staff to see the work of rebuilding in the light of faith.

Monday, 5th October 2009
5:00 to 6:30 PM
Natividad Galang Fajardo Conference Room
Ground Floor, Horacio de la Costa Hall
School of Humanities

You are most welcome to this evening of songs, poetry, readings from biblical texts, reflections on recent experiences. All this in view of recognizing our need for mercy and compassion, showing our praise and thanksgiving, and inclining ourselves to the call for service.

We continue to celebrate MAGIS in our responses to the crisis situation that our society faces today.

All the best,

MARIA LUZ C. VILCHES, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Dean, School of Humanities
Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University

After the Flood (Oct 02 09)

2009-10-01T11:33:00.000-07:00

Note that the title that I chose is "After the Flood", not "After the Typhoon", because there was hardly any typhoon. All we had was flooding due to the release of water from Angat, Ipo, and La Mesa dams, resulting in more than 300 deaths (not counting bodies that have not yet been found), massive destruction of property, sickness, and despair. And the culprits continue denying their culpability. If man does not judge their actions, God will.

All the houses in Kingsville suffered the same fate. Water entered into at least the first floor, wetting everything inside with semi-muddy floodwater, killing all electrical appliances, and wetting all books and clothes and documents. All wood appliances like pianos and composite wood cabinetry, absorbed water and bloated, making it difficult to take out the wet stuff inside. Composite wood cabinetry are useless after a flood, and must be thrown away. Narra sala sets are exceptions, since water hardly affected them. Plastic drawers in plastic cabinets retained 100% of water that entered, each drawer holding nearly five gallons of dirty floodwater.

Outside, on the driveway or on the street where floodlevel is deeper, water got into all vehicles parked there,. getting into every possible hole in the vehicles, including the air-filtration system, and replacing the fuel in the tank with the heavier floodwater. Also outside, where the pet dogs and pet cats are kept in their specially made dog and cat houses, many of them simply drowned, except those that you were able to bring inside the house.

You clean out the sala first, and then realize that you should have clean out the rooms first, because cleaning the rooms require that you bring out stuff from the rooms, through the sala, and out of the house onto the pingpong table in the driveway, where you transferred everything to dry, since you can not move them to dry out in the sun, because there is no sun, but only a steady drizzle. You can't imagine how heavy a King size mattress is when soaked in water - three muscled men are needed to drag the thing out of the house, not even lift it. Then you clean out all electrical outlets on the ground floor, in preparation for Meralco power, which you expect to come soon. When you went out to buy food, water, and other basic needs, two kilometers from your house, you got signal on your Globe mobile, which, by some magic trick from Globe, such Globe mobile signal is absent from the entire Kingsville Subdivision. Then your friend who lives in New Manila, whose first floor also got flooded, calls you and tells you not to turn on electricity to the outlets, because he did that and got a short, and now he has no power for several days.

Next you need to attend to the laundry, but you have no electrical power, and your washing machine and dryer are all flooded. So you bring some wet clothes to the cleaners, who promise you that your laundry will be ready for pick up in 12 days time, because they are full of other people's laundry. Fortunately, you have a son, who gives you his washing machine, and now wait for power to be restored. Finally after several days, power comes, and you spend hours spin-drying all the wet clothes. Now find out that you do not have enough clothes lines, and your problem never ends.

So you go out again to buy food, and you discover that your favorite Robinsons Supermarket also got flooded and will not be selling for the next several days, so you go to Sta Lucia, where food prices have miraculously gone up by 30%?

Next you try to see if you can have your Honda City towed to Honda Quezon Avenue, and find out that the queue is three cars deep all along the entire length of their service center, and if you bring your car in, they can attend to it after se3fveral months.

God have mery on us. God have mercy on those murderers from Angat, Ipo, and La Mesa!

The Dams be Damned - Part 2 (Sep 28 09)

2009-09-27T19:05:00.000-07:00

Typhoon Visits Kingsville Subdivision

This is my email to the Computer Science Faculty of Ateneo:

Please be informed that Typhoon Andoy also visited the Ateneo Faculty Housing in Kingsville Subdivision, Antipolo City. The flood near Gate 3 on Marcos Highway was one of the last Metro Manila floods to subside. Affected are the families of Dr. Jose Marasigan, Dr. Manny Dy, Dr. Pablo Manalastas, Dra. Baby Angtuaco, Mr. Pete San Pedro, Mr. Fred Oafallas (brother of Oafallas of Registrar's Office), and many others whose names I do not remember (part of being a senior citizen).

My house is about one meter above Ateneo Road in Kingsville, and Ateneo Road is about the same level as Marcos Highway. My driveway is two feet lower than my house. Under the worst floods we ever had in 23 years, the flood water never went above one foot from my driveway.

On Saturday, the flooding on my driveway reached about one foot high, when the rain stopped. The household thought that the flood will not reach any higher, because of historical experience. But the rain has already stopped for some time, and still the water rose higher. When the water level started reaching my floor at the sala, my household started moving stuff up the second floor attic, and then the worst flood came over our house. Inside the house the water level was waist-deep, but outside it was neck-high. Five of my ten dogs drowned in the flood and one of my two cats also drowned. Today I must bury six live beings. Our Honda City was submerged and full of mud and could not yet be revived. The keys on the piano at the sala stuck together and can not be played anymore. One TV is now caput. Water entered all our cabinets and all our clothes were soaked and muddied. And worst of all, my wife and I were not even at home, since I drove her to the office in the early morning of Saturday. We were not able to drive back home Saturday afternoon during the height of the flood. We tried going back home Sunday morning at 5:00 AM, got diverted by the stalled traffic into Marikina, but had to return to Ateneo, because there was no way to reach Marcos Highway from Marikina that was not flooded. My wife and I got home Sunday evening at 7:00 PM.

Everyone is alive and safe, but not okay.

Our relatives were calling us, but our mobile phones were running out of charge. We had relatives from Los Angeles telling us that for the past weeks, LA newspapers were warning that Angat dam could fail if water is not released to safe levels. I checked the online version of Inquirer, and I found this news item:

http://services.inquirer.net/print/print.php?article_id=20090926-227066
Waters in Bulacan dams breach maximum levels - 9/26/09
26 Sep 2009 ... http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/...
PDCC reports said the water level at the Angat Dam in Norzagaray town ... administering these dams ordered the release of excess water to ease the ...

Curiously, this article has been taken down (by order of Malacanang?)

My daughter reported that the rains have already stopped and the water level is hardly above my driveway. The big flood came long after the rain has stopped, and it came very quickly, hardly the result of heavy rain. The onrush of the flood can only be explained by a mathematical technique called Catastrophe Theory, since regular heavy rain will produce regularly rising flood levels, not the catastrophic onrush of water released from catastrophic source. So the massive flooding and mass killing of flood victims was probably a result of the release of water from Angat and Ipo.

The least this government can do is to ensure that this event is not repeated -- for heaven's sake, warn the people that you intend to release water from the dams weeks ahead of time, so that they can move to safer grounds. Don't mask your evil intentions under the cover of heavy rain, and blame the flooding on the rain! Face up to your responsibility.

The fairest this government can do is to compensate the victims!

~Pablo Manalastas~

The Dams be Damned? (Sep 28, 09)

2009-09-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

We live at Ateneo Street, Kingsville Subdivision, Antipolo City. Kingsville is at the boundary of Antipolo and Marikina. Our Gate 3 is at Marcos Highway, and you just need to cross Marcos Highway to get to Marikina. Our neighbors are Filinvest East which is still in Antipolo and Town and Country in Pasig City. A little more to the east and you have Robinsons East Mall and Sta Lucia Mall.

We left the house on Saturday at 7:45 AM. The weather was fine and the traffic was light, it being Eid el'Ftr holiday. There was a slight drizzle but we had no indication of any impending doom. We reached my wife's office on Banawe Street Quezon City at 8:20 AM and a travel time of 35 minutes from Kingsville to Banawe is actually record time, travelling at a slow 50 kph. I had my usual breakfast of rice and eggs at Jollibee Siena and drove back to UP, hoping to read the transcripts of the congressional deliberations on Section 12 of RA-9369 at the CenPEG office, before going back home. On my drive to UP, the heavy rains started. Quezon Avenue in front of Children's Hospital was already flooding. Elliptical Road in front of Quezon City Hall was flooded and I had to carefully select the least-flooded lane. I reached UP and parked at the CSWCD, waiting for Roda Manalac, who was bringing the transcripts with her. Roda was taking public transport, and was texting me the progress of her travel. At about 11:00 am she told me that she was already near the Petron Station on Katipunan, near Sta Maria de la Strada Church. I decided to drive to Katipunan and then to proceed back home. I would then drop Roda at Robinsons, so she can take her ride home from there. But when I tried to exit UP, the guards at the Velasquez gate told me that CP Garcia was already flooded and I should take the Nawasa Gate. So I did, but I had to take east-bound counterflow lane of Katipunan instead of the west bound lane, because all the drivers were doing it. Before reaching the CP Garcia intersection, the traffic was already at a standstill, so I had to turn back intoUP Campus.

(I'm already running out of battery charge on my Wind laptop, so I will continue this post when we get our electricity back in a few days)

This post will try to point the connection between the release of water from Angat and Ipo dams to the massive destruction and death that occurred as a result of flooding in Central Luzon and in Cainta-Marikina-Pasig-Antipolo and surrounding areas. Please see:

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20090926-227066/Waters-in-Bulacan-dams-breach-maximum-levels

[Bye for now, or till we get our power back. To my friends: My mobile phone has no more battery power, and we have no electricity. We are too busy cleaning out the mud from our house, and burrying five dead dogs and one cat. I wonder if we can resurrect our Honda City and the piano?]

Is the War Ended? (Sep 25 09)

2009-09-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

I saw on cable TV a movie on the British American war. Near the end of the movie a young woman asks her mother, "Is the war ended?", to which the mother replied, "As long as there is a British soldier on American soil, the war is not ended".

Nais ko rin sanang tanungin kayo, "Ang ating laban ba ay tapos na?". Sa aking palagay, hanggang may isang sundalong Kano na nananatili sa lupang Pinoy o dagat ng Pinoy dahil sa VFA ay hindi pa tapos ang ating laban. Hanggang may isang sundalong Smith na nanggagahasa sa ating kababaihan at pagkatapos ay pakakawalan ng ganoon na lamang, ay hindi pa tapos ang ating laban. Hanggang may mga mambabatas na magpapahayag na ang karagatang nasa pagitan ng ating mga isla ay hindi bahagi ng ating teritoryo ay hindi pa tapos ang ating laban. Hanggang may mga Pinoy na sa isip at sa puso ay nanaisin pang maging estado ng Amerika ang Pilipinas, ay hindi pa tapos ang ating laban. Hanggang tayo ay umaasa pa sa pag-angkat ng ating pagkain at iba pang gamit galing sa ibang bansa, hindi pa tapos ang ating laban.

Napakarami nating dapat gawin upang mapag-isa ang mga Pilipino sa isip, salita at sa gawa, upang matutunan nating mahalin ang ating bayan, sapagka't tayo lamang ang maaaring magmahal sa ating kapwa Pilipino.

The Death of Election 2010 Source Code Review (Sep 23 09)

2009-09-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

If you saw the ANC special on Election 2010 at 8:00 o'clock PM on Monday night, where I asked Comelec when the source code of the Election 2010 computer programs will be released for review by interested political parties and groups, Director Rafanan said that CenPEG will not do a source code review, but a international certification agency will do the review as a prerequisite to TEC certification. After customization in November 2009, and after code review by that international certification agency in February 2010, the source code will be "shown" to interested political parties, but not reviewed by them. The PPCRV representative and Ramon Casiple and Renato Garcia even added that the source code will be presented in much the same manner that a company shows its financial statements to the public.

My daughter Karen keeps telling me that I should not cite the law, RA-9369 Section 12, which reads:

"Once an AES technology is selected for implementation, the Commission shall promptly make the source code of that technology available and open to any interested political party or groups which may conduct their own review thereof."

She says that I should not cite the law to the lawyers of COMELEC, since they are better at the law, and they can can twist the meaning of the law to whatever they want the law to look like. But I argue with her that this provision is not just a question of law, but a question of computer technology as well, at which I am slightly better than the lawyers of COMELEC. No matter how I twist and turn and squeeze and pull and push these words of Section 12, I see no way out but for COMELEC to release the source code to the political parties and groups who are interested, and showing them the advertizing page of a company giving a healthy financial statement of the company is not a substitute for source code review. Ask any computer programmer, ask Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio, ask the members of the Philippine Linux Users' Group and they will NEVER agree that showing the public a certification by an international certification agency that states that the Dominion Voting Systems "Democracy Suite Ballot Marking System plus the Democracy Suite Image Cast" has been certified and is suitable for use in the Primaries in New York, is not an acceptable certification that the "Democracy Suite Image Cast" alone (which Smartmatic has renamed to SAES-1800 PCOS computer) is suitable for use in the Philippines.

What I do not understand is why "computer security experts" like Mr. Mata and others from the CyberSecurity groups do not want the political parties to do a source code review. Why should reviewing the source code make the election programs more susceptible to external attacks? Have they not seen the experience of Linux and OpenOffice and GIMP and so many other programs that are freely available on the Net? Their source codes are available for ANYONE to download and review and modify to their hearts' content, and never have I seen a report stating that the security of Linux or OpenOffice or GIMP has been compromised as a result of these reviews. On the other hand, the source code of Microsoft Windows XP and Vista, are not available for download anywhere, and yet there are gazillions of viruses and vulnerabilities of Windows. This is because opening up the source code for review allows more people to study and to help correct the vulnerabilities. These corrections for improvement can be accepted by COMELEC, if it wants and rejected otherwise. It is still COMELEC's call. It is COMELEC's acceptance or rejection of suggestions for improvements that will determine the future quality of the election programs, not the source code review itself.

But Director Rafanan has already made his final word on the issue, and I believe Director Rafanan's word is god's word. May God bless COMELEC, and may I ask, like Jesus asked, to "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do".

Installing MPI (Sep 20 09)

2009-09-19T15:37:00.000-07:00

My daughter (Karen) and I are studying parallel programming in MPI. We have these beautiful books, "Parallel Programming in C with MPI and OpenMP" by Michael Quinn and "Parallel Programming with MPI" by Peter Pacheco to serve as guides. All we need are the actual MPI support libraries and include files. Karen intends to run parallel programs on her four-node Rockscluster at the UP-NIMBB. For test-programming at home, we need to try out our ideas on our personal laptops, before trying on the cluster.

We decided to standardize on the MPI implementation MPICH from Argonne National Laboratories, since our friend Allan Espinosa works there, and should we get into problems, we can always email him. On Karen's Ubuntu Jaunty laptop, all she needed to do start Synaptic Package Manager, select mpich2 and mpich2-dev, and everything is installed for her. Ubuntu is truly friendly to human beings (specially the parallel computing kind).

On my Fedora Leonidas laptop, typing the command "yum install mpich2 mpich2-devel" does not work. I had to do a manual rpmfind to locate the rpms that I need. If you use Leonidas, you will need to get the following:

ftp://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/fedora/updates/11/i386/mpich2-1.1.1p1-1.fc11.i586.rpm
ftp://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/fedora/updates/11/i386/mpich2-devel-1.1.1p1-1.fc11.i586.rpm
ftp://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/fedora/releases/11/Everything/i386/os/Packages/environment-modules-3.2.6-7.fc11.i586.rpm

Use the "rpm -i" command to install these rpms. The MPI header file will be installed in /usr/include/mpich2/mpi.h, and the libraries will be installed in /usr/lib/mpich2/", which are fairly standard places. Thus our C source code should have the include directive

#include

and our gcc command line should look like

gcc myprog.c ... -L/usr/lib/mpich2 -lmpich -o myprog

Thus we need to add -L and -l among other compiler directives.

Since building a compute cluster is fairly cheap at current Gilmore prices, and since the necessary development tools are freely downloadable, every scientist can now experiment with parallel computing, and pretend that you were using a Cray computer, while sipping Philippine Barako coffee. Enjoy!

Election 2010 Wallpaper (Sep 10 09)

2009-09-09T21:49:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for a wallpaper for your laptop or desktop computer, here is the wallpaper that is strongly recommended for your use. The wallpaper is not only beautiful, but is also cool to the eyes, because green is known to be a restful color. Also we have here a plea, a request, a prayer, for COMELEC to release the source code of the election 2010 computer programs, because that is the honorable thing to do. It is the lawful thing to do. Comelec should not keep promising to the electorate that it will release the source code, should not keep making press releases that it will release the source code, when in reality it has no intention to do so, and has in fact written to CenPEG, and has given impossible conditions for CenPEG to join a Dominion-Smartmatic-Comelec-supervised closed-door, no external communication, review of some source code, which may not even be the source code of the election 2010 computer programs!

Where is the source code that is supposed to be in escrow at the Central Bank? Where is the source code that Comelec is supposed to release to all interested political parties and groups, for their "own review", as soon as the technology is chosen (for implementation) in the second week of June? It has been three months since the technology was chosen for implementation, and yet there is no source code. Chairman Melo, Commisioner Rene Sarmiento, Executive Director Tolentino, SBAC Chief Atty Rafanan, CAC Chair Mr. Roxas-Chua, CAC member Mr. Garcia, COMELEC TEC Chair and ASTI Director Denis Villorente, members of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee, where are the source codes of the PCOS and CCS computer programs? Why don't you obey the law and prove that Comelec is a law-abiding government agency?

Supreme Court Upholds Poll Automation (Sep 09 09)

2009-09-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

In a news report at Inquirer.Net, Comelec Chairman Melo announced that the Supreme Court has ruled that the automation of the 2010 elections is legal. I do not understand why Chairman Melo is making this announcement and not the Supreme Court. You can read the rest of the Inquirer report here:

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20090908-224221/SC-upholds-poll-automationComelec-chief

Where does that leave Atty Harry Roque and the Concerned Citizens' Movement? I was at the Supreme Court during the pleadings, and I personally believe that Atty Roque made more sense (to me as an IT person), than either the government counsel for Comelec, or Atty Lazatin for Smartmatic. But the Supreme Court has decided, and we have to respect the decision of the highest court of the land.

My heart goes to Atty Harry Roque, though.

Ateneo 150 Fedora Linux Wallpaper (Sep 07 09)

2009-09-06T16:42:00.000-07:00

On the occasion of the Ateneo sesquicentennial (150th anniversary 1859-2009), I am posting a modified version of the Fedora 11 Leonidas Noontime wallpaper. You can use this as wallpaper for any of your GNU/Linux distro (Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, CentOS) or even as a wallpaper for your Windows Vista / Windows7 desktop, if you are not too particular about your Windows loyalty. I think the wallpaper is simple but pretty. Also it reminds you that your school has been around for 150 years, educating the Filipino with its ratio studiorum, with the required readings in literature, theology, history, philosophy, with the problem sets in mathematics and physics, with the rigor of legal training, and now with clinical work in medicine. Which school is crazy enough to want to mold Filipinos with Christian, Catholic, Filipino and Jesuit values?

Only Ateneo!

The Women of Gabriela (Sep 06 09)

2009-09-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, August 29, 2009, the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) gave a briefing on the Automated Election System (AES) 2010 to the members of Gabriela in its offices in Quezon City. Miss Elsa Gines gave a presentation on the "Five Technical Vulnerabilities of AES2010", and Mr. Bobby Tuazon gave a presentation on the "Vulnerabilities in the Management and Legal Aspects of AES2010". The room was full of women participants, although there were a few men and some children around. The women were serious and were intent at listening to the presentations. And they were taking notes! An open forum followed after the talks. The two most important questions were: (1) What procedures have been put in place in case a machine breaks down and there are no replacement machines available? (2) We want to be poll watchers -- how do we watch the fully computerized election of May 2010? I think these are two questions which COMELEC has to answer, and answer soon.

CenPEG has given many briefings about the AES2010 -- to teachers of ACT, to lawyers of the UP College of Law, to members of the Concerned Citizens Movement, to the nuns (and priests) of the Association of Major Religious Superiors, and to other groups. The women of Gabriela are my personal favorites. They are serious, they are involved, and they want to take correct action.

Long live the women of Gabriela!

Parallel Programming with MPI and OpenMP (Sep 02 09)

2009-09-01T13:11:00.000-07:00

Last week, I attended the course "Multi-Core Faculty Training" given by Intel at the Department of Computer Science of the University of the Philippines - Diliman. Our trainors were Rama Malladi and Vipin Kumar of Intel-India. The participants were computer science faculty of various universities in the Philippines. The training was about programming threads on Intel multi-processor computers, called Intel multi-core computers, without the need to use the POSIX threads application programming interface (API) [1]. In particular, we used the Intel Threading Building Blocks [2], which is actually an implementation of the OpenMP [3] standard. The laboratory exercises were done on Intel Core2 Quad (four-processor) computers with one MB ram, running 64-bit Windows XP Professional. We used Microsoft Visual Studio with Intel C/C++ compilers, Intel VTune Performance Analyzer, Intel Thread Checker, and Intel Thread Profiler. It was a pretty interesting course, made slightly less interesting by the fact that we used Windows when professional scientific practice on multi-threading almost always happens on Linux scientific clusters. This is a slight oversight on the part of Intel, which is, after all, a closed-source commercial software vendor like Microsoft.

After the course, I decided to find out what similar tools are available for Linux, and I found that all recent versions of the GNU compiler collection [4] already support OpenMP, including the most recent gcc-4.4 C/C++ compiler. This means that all the friendly tools like Eclipse and similar IDEs automatically support OpenMP. I also found a beautiful book, "Parallel Programming in C with MPI and OpenMP" by Michael Quinn [5]. MPI stands for message passing interface [6], and it is a tool for dividing up a big program into smaller pieces for execution in several separate computers connected by fast network switches. OpenMP, on the other hand, is a tool for executing a program as several threads in one multi-core computer, without the programmer worrying about API calls like pthread_create() and pthread_join(). So MPI and OpenMP are the tools that we need for programming clusters of Intel Core2 Duo/Quad/etc computers.

Today, even the poor computing science researcher can construct using commodity products, compute clusters of cheap Intel multi-core computers, and pretend that they are gods computing with very expensive Cray super computers. Isn't life beautiful?

End notes:

[1] On a Linux box, type the command "man pthreads" to get an idea of the POSIX threads API.

[2] The Intel TBB documentation can be found here: http://software.intel.com/en-us/multi-core/

[3] The official website of OpenMP is http://www.openMP.org

[4] The GNU compiler collection is supplied as standard on most Linux distributions. Its documentation is available froma the website http://directory.fsf.org/project/gcc/

[5] Michael Quinn, "Parallel Programming in C with MPI and OpenMP", McGraw-Hill, NY, 2004, xiv + 529 pages

[6] Documentation for MPI is available from http://www.mpi-forum.org/docs/

Abigail's Pilgrimage (Aug 27 09)

2009-08-26T23:54:00.000-07:00

My daughter, Ma. Abigail, writes:

Nakabalik na ako from my piligrimage to Santiago de Compostela. I walked 100+ kms in 5 days from Sarria to Santiago de Compostela (camino frances). Siyempre hindi whole day yung lakad para hindi maubusan ng beds sa hostels na para sa peregrinos. I have now a certificate which they grant once you have finished the pilgrimage. Plus, they mention the statistics during the pilgrim's mass everyday at noontime. I was the only Filipino who finished it on that day. The following day's mass na nga lang nasabi dahil dumating ako sa Santiago halos 11AM plus the queue for the registration took almost an hour. Na-mention pa ulit yung Philippines during the homily dahil sinabi nung priest na yung camino ay nag-u-unite ng tao not only in Europe. Although I started the piligrimage alone, I was never really alone. The first 3 days, I was walking with someone from Almeria and the last 2 days with 2 people from Zaragoza who have made the pilgrimage 2 times before and are well-prepared for the voyage. I'm quite content about the whole experience. It is not easy. I have seen at least one girl cry because she cannot finish the pilgrimage due to a problem with her knees. Anyway, I just wanted to inform you that I'm back in Granada.

Well, that's my girl! Always so gutsy. Congratulations, anak!

Election 2010: Why Windows Programs for Linux PCOS Computers? (Aug 20 09)

2009-08-19T06:23:00.000-07:00

I am baffled by this entry in the Financial Proposal submitted by Smartmatic-TIM to COMELEC on May 4, 2009. Item 1.1.1 lists 83,925 licenses to "Enterprise grade N-tier software application Database SQL Server Standard 2005", obviously Windows software. But Item 1.5.1 lists only 72 units of EMS Machines (Windows Computers), so these 83,925 Windows SQL Servers can not be for the 72 units of Windows EMS computers. The closest figures that I can find in the proposal is the batch of 82,200 units of PCOS Machines enumerated in Item 1.5.2, but these are running uClinux in firmware, and these PCOS computers do not even have hard disks for the SQL Servers.

Does Smartmatic-TIM even know the system that they are installing for election 2010? Why do they make glaring errors like this? And why didn't the Comelec Advisory Council call COMELEC's attention to this error?

Is this Smartmatic-controlled computerized election leading to computerized padding of election costs? COMELEC must answer this important question.

Election 2010 Computers: Good vs. Bad (Aug 18 09)

2009-08-17T15:40:00.000-07:00

I prepared a set of Adobe Acrobat slides describing the PCOS or counting computers that will be used on election day May 10, 2010, and the CCS or canvassing computers that will be used at the city, municipal, provincial, national COMELEC, and national Congressional canvasses. The Financial Proposal submitted by Smartmatic-TIM to COMELEC was used as a basis for these slides.

I also give the good points and the bad points of each type of hardware and operating system. As I am one of the oldest Linux users in the Philippines, with Linux User No. 5037, and having taught courses on operating systems and Linux system administration for a number of years, and having actually done system administration for a time in Ateneo, I believe that my assessments as GOOD or BAD, are very reasonable.

I also mention nine (9) KNOWN ISSUES, a result of the critical study done by the "U.P. College of Law Policy Study Project on AES2010". You may debate the veracity of these KNOWN ISSUES, but you can always go back to the documents mentioned there and verify for yourselves the truth of these ISSUES.

We all want clean and honest elections in May 2010. But clean and honest elections will not happen automatically even if Smartmatic computers are used. My honest IT professional's belief is that unless these issues are addressed satisfactorily by Smartrmatic, COMELEC, the COMELEC Advisory Council, the COMELEC Technical Evaluation Committee, and the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee, then computerized election 2010 will lead to computerized failure of elections.

Smartmatic's PCOS: Why 4-Bit Scanner?

2009-08-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

Smartmatic's PCOS: Why 4-Bit Scanner?

In an earlier blog post:

http://pmana.multiply.com/journal/item/61/Why_Smartmatics_PCOSSAES_Passed_the_SBAC_Accuracy_Test_Jul_31_09

you will find an explanation of why and how the Smartmatic PCOS machine passed the SBAC's reading accuracy test despite its having only a 4-bit scanner. I've been thinking hard why Dominion/Smartmatic used a 4-bit scanner, when 24-bit scanners are so cheap today. For a little over two thousand pesos (PHP2,000.00) you can buy a high-end scanner. As you already know, 4-bit scanners can see only 16-shades of gray (black and white) while 24-bit scanners can see over 16 million colors, enough for the job of reading our hand markings on our ballots on election day. With Smartmatic's 4-bit capable PCOS scanner, many people's votes will not be counted properly, and voters will not even know this. They will be totally clueless, because COMELEC will not enable the PCOS feature that allows the voter to verify how the PCOS read his ballot. Kawawa naman ang Pinoy. Magbabayad na ng PHP7.2billion, madadaya pa ng mumurahing scanner.

Dr. Felix Muga, faculty of Mathematics at Ateneo de Manila, sent us a link that explains why Dominion/Smartmatic's PCOS computer uses only a 4-bit scanner:

http://www.vote-ny.com/english/transcripts-sequoia/

Dominion/Sequoia computer was designed to read ballots printed and marked by another computer that can produce PERFECTLY-SHADED OVAL MARKINGS. The Dominion/Sequoia voting system used in New York consisted of four components: (1) a big hooded touch-screen, which the voter uses to make his selections, (2) a quality printer which prints the voter's ballot, with his choices indicated by perfectly shaded oval markings, (3) the PCOS computer that scans the computer-printed ballot, interprets the votes, and counts and accumulates the votes for the precinct, and (4) the ballot box for holding the paper ballots. But Smartmatic licensed only item (3) from Dominion, for use in the Philippines.

So on election day, May 10, 2010, all voters, young and old, must learn to mark his ballot like a computer marks ballots, using perfectly evenly fully shaded ovals. But we are not perfect markers because we are not computer markers. Why should COMELEC penalize us voters by buying the inappropriate technology and asking us to to make up for the inappropriateness of the technology that COMELEC has chosen? Why should COMELEC's chosen technology fail at reading dots, check marks, cross marks, pencil marks, ballpen marks, etc, when the capability to read such markings is a condition for bidders, as stated in COMELEC's own Terms of Reference? Why does COMELEC contradict itself in order to accommodate a bidder that people are starting to believe to be COMELEC's favorite? Was SBAC's bidding fair?

COMELEC must answer these questions. It is only fair for COMELEC to do the honorable thing, and explain these to us.

Harry Roque vs COMELEC-Smartmatic

2009-08-07T00:44:00.000-07:00

The Honorable Justices came into the room, dressed in black robes, and occupied their positions at the bench. Then everyone was asked to be seated, and the hearing of the "Harry Roque vs COMELEC-Smartmatic" case started. Atty Harry Roque spoke with confidence, secure in the knowledge that he was fighting for the "right", and armed with hard facts that buttress his claim that COMELEC must pilot test in 12 areas in the country in the national elections of 2010, before doing fully computerized elections in the national elections after 2010. He also gave proof of his claim that the 60-40 split in the JVA between TIM and Smartmatic is on paper only, but in reality, it was Smartmatic that was calling the shots in almost every major decision making.

After Atty Roque spoke, all the Honorable Justices asked him questions. From the manner of their questioning, one can tell that the Hon Justices were biased, six for him, and six against. I asked Atty Vicky Avena what happens in a situation like this, and she said Atty Roque will lose in case of a tie, unless the Hon Chief Justice can convince the other Justices to change their votes. The Justices were very well informed, and most of them did their homework, displaying a depth of knowledge even more extensive than the lawyers at court. At one point, the Chief Justice asked Atty Roque if he knew the contents of COMELEC Bid Bulletin No. 10, and it took him some time to realize that the Chief Justice was actually leading him, because Bid Bulletin No. 10 is one of the documents that he needed to prove his point that Smartmatic is actually running the 2010 elections and that COMELEC has surrendered its mandate to manage the election to Smartmatic. In Bid Bulletin No. 10, COMELEC gives Smartmatic full responsibility for generating the private and public keys of the BEI and BOC personnel, which the BEI will use to digitally sign the precinct election returns (ER). Since Smartmatic has this responsibility, it will have possession of all BEIs' private keys, and will give Smartmatic the capability to change the ER of any precinct in the entire country, resulting in massive computerized cheating in case this capability is exploited by Smartmatic.

Next it was the turn of the Asst Solicitor General, counsel for COMELEC, to speak, and to be asked questions. Finally the lawyer for Smartmatic spoke and gave a demo (actually Chris Iskander of Dominion-Smartmatic gave a demo, while the lawyer spoke about the demo that was going on) of the PCOS-SAES-1800, and then the Justices asked him questions.

It was my first ever court experience, and it was at the Supreme Court! I felt so proud that I am witness to a most important event in the history of my country, at which the implementation or non-implementation of the first fully computerized national election will be decided. Most people in attendance were lawyers from U.P. Everyone was dressed smartly, the men in barong Tagalog or coat and tie, the women in blazers and smart dresses. I was the only one in long-sleeve shirt! The Supreme Court session started at about 2:00 PM, and lasted nine hours and twenty minutes. The court never called a merienda break.

Now I have added three major heroes in my Honor Roll, for their intelligence, breadth and depth of knowledge, and fairness: Chief Justice Reynato Puno, Justice Antonio Carpio, and Justice Leonardo Quisumbing, all Honorable Justices of the Supreme Court. I also want to add a minor hero, Atty Harry Roque, Knight of Truth, fighting against major odds, armed only with the wisdom and ingenuity of a UP lawyer, at one time citing "an IT expert from the neighboring rival school", in order to reveal the truth behind the COMELEC-Smartmatic deal.

Letter from a Student (Aug 05 09)

2009-08-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

Dear. Dr. Manalastas,

I'm not sure if you remember me. I graduated from the MS program back in 1991. I was one of the only Americans in the program at the time. You were one of my instructors. I was on the Ateneo site searching for some information and came across your name. I wanted to let you know that you were one of the best instructors I ever had, and that includes the instructors from UC, Berkeley and University of Oklahoma where I earned other degrees. Just wanted to send my regards...

Best Regards,
Mike Hawkins

Dear Mike,

Of course I remember you, and your heuristic for the travelling salesman problem! Actually, you were my favorite student, although I did not tell you that before. You work hard and are always first to submit homework. And you get good grades.

I have retired, and now teach part time only, one course in the University of the Philippines, and one-half in Ateneo Quezon City. I also volunteered as IT consultant for the U.P. College of Law Policy Study on Computerized Election 2010 (www.aes2010.net). You will probably find out that the computerized Philippine national elections on May 10, 2010 will be the biggest ever computerized elections in the whole world. This one will use paper ballots, computerized counting at the precincts, mobile internet to transmit results to canvassing centers, and computerized canvassing to determine winners. There will be 50 million voters, 82,200 precinct counting computers, and 2,000 canvassing center computers, and will cost the Filipino taxpayer PHP7.2 billion - PHP11.4 billion.

I also have a blog, and I might be the oldest blogger in the Philippines: http://pmana.multiply.com/journal.

Thank you for your letter. It comes like a gift from heaven, to rejuvenate my dying soul.

Pablo Manalastas

Karen Completes Babel (Aug 02 09)

2009-08-01T19:16:00.000-07:00

Equipped with a PHP75,000.00 budget to buy a desktop computer for the Protein Structure and Immunology laboratory at the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (NIMBB) at the University of the Philippines, my daughter Karen decided to make the most of this money, and buy a compute cluster instead. With that amount, she got four nodes: a master front end and three compute nodes. Each node had an Intel Core2 Duo processor, 2GB memory, 320GB disk, and a gigabit network card. She also got a Samsung LCD monitor, keyboard, and mouse, shared by all four nodes via a KVM switch. She was left with enough money to get a 16 port 10/100MB network switch, although a gigabyte switch would have been better but more expensive option. She got the 16 port switch, so that when their laboratory get more money in the future, they can add more compute nodes. She installed Rocksclusters v5.2, and the installation process took her several days, because this is her first cluster installation job. She had no one to consult, because there are not too many molecular biology people who know how to install compute clusters.

When her boss, Dr. Bascos, saw the contraption, she called it Babel because it reminded her of the biblical tower of Babel. This name might actually be an appropriate name, since the cluster speaks many computer languages like C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, and PHP, and in addition, many BIO packages/languages like TIGR, BioPython, ClustalW, NCBI Blast, T_Coffee, Fasta, Gromacs, and Phylip.

Her next problem is learning to use these BIO packages to help in her work. The search for knowledge never ends.

Is Smartmatic's PCOS software covered by GPL?

2009-07-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

Smartmatic's PCOS computer, called the SAES-1800 [1], will be used as vote counting machine at the precincts on election day, May 10, 2010. SAES works under the uClinux operating system and most probably uses the libSANE scanner library for its built-in ballot scanner. Both the uClinux operating system and the libSANE scanner library are covered by the General Public License (GPL) [2], a freedom software license (open source license). Under the GPL, any derivative product, like the SAES software, has to be covered by the same GPL, and so must necessarily be open source. Is the refusal of Smartmatic to release the source code of SAES-1800 a violation of the GPL? During the Senate hearing on the Smartmatic-TIM-Comelec contract by Senator Chiz Escudero's committee, I asked Mr. Cesar Flores, spokeman of Smartmatic how I can get technical documentation and the source code of the SAES-1800. Mr. Flores said that anything that we need from them, we should ask Comelec. The Center for People Empowerment in Governance (of which I am IT consultant) asked Comelec for the source code of the election programs, including the SAES and CCS (canvassing and consolidating system) programs. In an en-banc resolution dated June 2009, Comelec granted CenPEG its request for a copy of the source code of SAES and CCS. Up to now, more than a month after the en-banc resolution, CenPEG has not gotten a copy of the source codes of the two programs. Comelec's Executive Director Tolentino asked CenPEG to wait for the Comelec's Technical Evaluation Committee to issue a set of guidelines for the source code review by independent parties outside of Comelec. But the law (RA-9369) [3] is quite clear on this issue of source code review of the election programs:

"Once an AES technology is selected for implementation, the Commission shall promptly make the source code of that technology available and open to any interested political party or groups which may conduct their own review thereof."

Is this delaying tactic part of the Smartmatic-Comelec conspiracy to get full control of computerized election 2010, so that no one has an idea of how the Smartmatic computer programs are counting our votes and combining them into canvasses? Is this refusal of the Comelec to "promptly make the source code ... available" to CenPEG, so that it may "conduct its own review thereof", a violation of RA-9369?

Is Smartmatic's refusal to release the source code of the SAES-1800 a violation of the General Public License? In recent announcement of Microsoft to contribute 20,000 lines of Hyper-V code under the GPL, it was discovered that Microsoft had used open source components that were released under GPL. Microsoft is contributing its Hyper-V code under GPL in order to avoid a big embarassment that will be caused by its violation of the GPL of some of its components. Now is this not precisely the same case of Smartmatic's use of uClinux and libSANE library? Should not Smartmatic do the honorable thing and release the SAES-1800 code under the GPL?

Smartmatic: the people of the Philippines is waiting for you to do the honorable thing.

Richard Stallman: What are you doing?

//PManalastas

[1] http://www.smartmatic.com/fileadmin/users/docs/SAESSAES1800_technicalsheet_v2.0.pdf
[2] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html
[3] http://www.chanrobles.com/republicactno9369.html
[4] http://www.osnews.com/story/21882/Microsoft_s_Linux_Kernel_Code_Drop_Result_of_GPL_Violation

Entering Formulas in OpenOffice (July 20 09)

2009-07-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

Some colleagues have asked me how to enter formulas in OpenOffice documents. I discovered that OO has a tutorial on this topic:

http://documentation.openoffice.org/HOW_TO/formula/Formula_HowTo_1_0.pdf

The notation used for entering formulas is almost like TeX, only slightly better. So friends, go ahead and get this tutorial, and fire away with your formulas!

Fedora 11 Lion Wallpaper (Jul 19 09)

2009-07-18T23:26:00.000-07:00

The latest Fedora Linux distribution, Fedora 11, is codenamed "Leonidas", so I wanted to get a "lion" wallpaper for my laptop. Several lion wallpapers are available for download from various sites, including:

leonidas-1-noon_right.jpg
King_4070x1536.xcf

The first one "leonidas-1-noon_right.jpg" has a very big lion face that tends to obscure the icons on the desktop. The second one "King_4070x1536.xcf" is too big to use as wallpaper. So I decided to fix "King" to make it just right for my 1280x800 screen, and I got the wallpaper above. I do not know if I'm violating any copyrights here, and if I am, please tell me so that I can take this jpg image from my site.

Karen Installs 4-Node Rockscluster (Jul 17 09)

2009-07-16T16:36:00.000-07:00

My daughter Karen works as research assistant in one of the labs at the National Institute of Melocular Biology and Biotechnology at the University of the Philippines. She told me that their lab had a budget of PHP75,000.00 for a desktop computer. I suggested that that amount could buy them a compute cluster, instead of just one computer. So we did some canvassing, and she finally bought the cheapest four-node cluster of Intel Core2 Duo machines, interconnected with a 16-port network switch. The 16 ports is for growth, should they decide to add more nodes. The flat screen LCD monitor and mouse is shared by all four nodes via a KVM switch.

Being a molecular biology graduate did not prepare her for what lies ahead -- the installation of Rockscluster software. Now she is learning about master front-end, compute nodes, managed switch, DNS, IP addressing, MAC addresses, kickstart files, grub configuration, X configuration, Xen or no-Xen, BIO roll, etc.

Life is interesting when you have problems to solve. And my daughter sure has lots of them!

Karen Installs 4-Node Rockscluster (Jul 17 09)

2009-07-16T16:35:00.000-07:00

Public access to source code of election programs (Jul 17 09)

2009-07-16T14:39:00.000-07:00

The term "open source" and the more revolutionary term "free software" have official definitions given in the following documents:

1. Open source: http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php

2. Free software: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Basically, open source (& free software) means the person (anybody) who got the software under the open source/free software license has the freedom to study the code, make improvements, give the code away for free or for profit, plus many other freedoms. The only difference between open source and free software is in the treatment of derivative products. BSD-open-source allows the derivative product to be covered by any license the derivator wants. A derivative of GPL-free-software must be covered by the GPL-free-software license. The exact text of the GPL is given here:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt

The law RA-9369 requires that the source code of the election programs (PCOS and CCS) be made available by Comelec to the political parties and interested groups, for their independent review. But the law did not specify that the election programs be made open source, since that is asking too much.

However, Smartmatic's SAES-1800 program can be considered a "derivative" product of the uClinux operating system and libSane scanner library, both of which are GPL-free-software. "Considered derivative product" because I am not absolutely sure that it is a derivative product. If it is, then it must be GPL-free-software, by the infectious nature of the GPL. Under the conditions of the GPL, Smartmatic has to post the PCOS/SAES-1800 source code in a publicly accessible site.

Whether GPL or not, the law RA-9369 is clear. The political parties and interested groups have just to request Comelec, and under this law, Comelec has to make the source code available. There is no mention in the law of any source code review "guidelines". The term "guidelines" was coined by Melo/jimenez to restrict the freedom of citizens to access the source code, and "guidelines" has the effect of making the code accessible only to the experts, and only those "experts" as defined by Comelec.

By the nature of fully computerized counting of our votes from our paper ballots, it is not possible to witness a public counting of our votes, and so we can never be truly confident that the computer does not make mistakes counting our votes. Only a source code review by the public will assure the public that the computer will do a reasonable job. But by setting "guidelines", the Comelec is depriving the public the right to know how their votes are counted.

It helps to know that we graduate tens of thousands from our B.S. Computer Science and B.S. Information Technology programs. In fact, our government leaders take pride in the fact that the Filipino is the world's best English-speaking programmer. So we have hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who can read source code, so why restrict access to source code by setting "guidelines" giving only experts selected by Comelec exclusive access.

Computerized Election 2010 should implement secret voting and public counting. And computerized counting can have some semblance to public counting only when the source is made public.

Free as in Freedom (Apr 06 09)

2009-04-05T19:03:00.000-07:00

My friend and co-teacher Dr. Prof. Mr. Kardi Teknomo, associate professor of computer science at Ateneo de Manila University, one day asked me why some programmers write free open source programs. He reasoned out that a good programmer can make a lot of money from the programs that they write, and he could not understand why they give their programs away for free. I could not give him a short one sentence answer that will be satisfactory both for him and for me. I have read three books: "A Quarter Century of Unix", by Peter Salus (http://www.amazon.com/Quarter-Century-UNIX-Addison-Wesley-Systems/dp/0201547775), "Just for Fun: the Story of an Accidental Revolutionary", by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond (http://www.amazon.com/Just-Fun-Story-Accidental-Revolutionary/dp/0066620724), and "Free as in Freedom", by Sam Williams (http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/), and I know that the answer is in one of those pages that I have read. It's just that these three books make a beautiful account of the struggles of the programming community to write programs and to share them with the rest of the programming community, without regard for monetary reward. In particular, "Free as in Freedom" is an account of Richard Stallman's crusade to make source code of programs available for programmers to study and to improve upon, and to make the source code of such improvements available for programmers to study and to further improve upon. If the source code is kept a trade secret (by making only the binary executables available for sale or for free), then only the programmers hired by the copyright owner can make improvements to the program, and the program does not grow as fast as when the source code is made available. This seems to be the view of Stallman, and it is a view shared by all free open source advocates, and by companies that have made their products open source, products like Mozilla's Firefox, Sun's OpenOffice, Apache's webserver, Debian's GNU-Linux operating system, Canonical's Ubuntu Linux operating system, UC Berkeley's BSD derivative operating systems, and many others.

All that we wait for is for Bill Gate's Windows-8 operating system to be made truly free GPL open source, with GFDL manuals, so that we can use it to teach our operating systems laboratory course in the university.

Philippine Eagle in Ubuntu Wallpaper

2009-04-05T16:31:00.000-07:00

In January 2009, Linux Torvalds was in Australia (http://apcmag.com/in_pics_linus_torvalds_shaves_open_source_legend_down_to_size.htm) and in March, we read that the Australian Tasmanian devil will be the new mascot of the linux 2.6.29 kernel (http://apcmag.com/australian-marsupials-get-stellar-billing-in-the-linux-community.htm). The Tasmanian devil is in danger of extinction, and adopting it as temporary mascot of the Linux community is a step towards preventing that from happening.

Now in the Philippines, the monkey-eating eagle Pithecophaga jefferyi, the world's largest eagle, is also in danger of extinction. If I put it in an Ubuntu wallpaper and people download it, then maybe we increase people's awareness of the near extinction of this beautiful bird. Note that the Linux mascot, Tux, is also a bird, just like our own Philippine eagle.

Download this wallpaper, and use it as your Linux or Windows wallpaper. Then visit the Philippine eagle website, http://www.philippineeagle.org/, and see how you can help save the Philippine eagle.

Installing Debian Squeeze/Sid (Mar 12 09)

2009-03-11T16:19:00.000-07:00

I recently installed Debian 5.0 Lenny on my Neo Empriva M540 laptop. After installation, I was a bit disappointed that Lenny came with kernel 2.6.26, and this disappointment is due to the fact that Ubuntu 8.10 which was released earlier in October is already shipped with kernel 2.6.27 while Lenny still comes with an older kernel.

So I decided that I wanted kernel 2.6.28 and that Debian Squeeze was therefore the way to go. So I followed the instructions in:

http://www.go2linux.org/how-to-upgrade-from-debian-lenny-to-squeeze

to get Lenny upgraded to Squeeze. Essentially, the steps were as follows (working as root):

1. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list, replacing occurences of Lenny by Squeeze. My newly edited sources.list now looks like

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile squeeze/volatile main contrib
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-proposed-updates contrib non-free main

2. Then do the upgrade using the commands:
aptitude update
aptitude install apt dpkg aptitude
aptitude full-upgrade

When I rebooted, I now had Debian squeeze instead of Lenny. But still, the Squeeze kernel was 2.6.26. I now have to force installation of kernel 2.6.28. Working as root, I added the following line to /etc/pat/sources.list:

deb http://kernel-archive.buildserver.net/debian-kernel trunk main

Then I had to install kernel-archive key:

wget -q -O - http://kernel-archive.buildserver.net/key | apt-key add -

Then finally, I could install the latest kernel:

aptitude update
aptitude install linux-image-2.6.28-1-686

Upon rebooting and running Synaptic package manager, I was asked to upgrade the library to glibc 2.9-4, and gcc to 4.3.3-3.

Now I have the latest and the greatest linux kernel 2.6.28, running the the latest and greatest GNU C library 2.9!

What's Wrong with SSS? (Feb 24 09)

2009-02-23T17:37:00.000-08:00

I went to the SSS website today to check on the status of my retiree's pension. Instead of the expected Social Security System web page, I got the Oracle 10g web page. I thought I had made an error typing the URL, but it is www.sss.gov.ph clear as day. Something must have gone wrong with the gov.ph web pages, so I decided to check out www.dost.gov.ph, and I got the Department of Science and Technology website. I had expected this, since DOST is quite reliable, despite its ridiculously diminutive funding among all government agencies. How is it that DOST can tell the world via the Web what's happening in Philippine Science, but SSS can not tell its retirees via the Web what's happening to their pensions? Does not SSS have so much money that Commissioner Neri wants to invest SSS funds in "dangerous" ventures? Is not Neri supposed to be a "trustee" entrusted to keep the SSS funds growing in safe investments? Why can't he spend a small amount in keeping the SSS website up and running, so that members can check where he is putting their money? Members have a right to know!

Barack Obama is 44th U.S.A. President

2009-01-20T13:14:00.000-08:00

According to the CNN commentators, as of 12:00 noontime on October 20, 2009 president-elect Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America, by a provision of the Constitution of the U.S.A., even before Obama was sworn into office by Chief Justice Roberts, at about 12:30 EST, about 1:30 AM October 21 PHT. My whole family (wife Dulce, daughter Karen, and myself) was up early morning today, watching the CNN telecast of Obama being sworn into office, and watching two million Americans celebrate the inaugural of the first African American President ever. Today we are all late for work, because we stayed up late last night until the early morning. But we don't regret the lost sleep, since Obama's inaugural address promised a better and less greedy America, and America's more fair treatment of the rest of the world.

MSNBC has a video of the entire proceedings:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Long live democracy, wherever it is alive and is nurtured!

Installing Linux on Neo Empriva 540SVB (Jan 05 09)

2009-01-04T19:09:00.000-08:00

The Neo Empriva 540SVB was the first laptop that I bought when I retired in April 2006. Back then, the 512MB model was selling for PHP29,999.00 and that was value for money at that time. Today, PC Corner is selling the 2GB model for only PHP25,999.00, and it comes with the following:

Intel® Core™ Solo T1300
1.66GHz, 2Mb, 667MHz
2.0Gb DDR2-667MHz
80Gb SATA
DVD Dual
14in. Wide (WXGA) 1280x800
Built-in web camera
VIA Chrome9 VN896 Integrated
802.11BG WiFi / 56Kb Modem
Windows Vista™ Home Basic
60-Days Office 2007 Trial
PhP 23,999.00 - NO OS
PhP 25,999.00 - with OS

[Note: Outside the Philippines, this laptop is sold as the Clevo M540SE.]

This would be an ideal machine if it came with Core2 Duo, 160GB-250GB SATA disk, and dedicated video ram. It does not, so it is not my dream machine. But I had to live with my original purchase, and since I am a Linux person, I had to get Linux working on this laptop.

Nondestructively repartitioning the disk to preserve Vista and allow installation of Linux is straightforward. You can use one of the live Linux boot CDs (Knoppix, GRML, Debian Lenny Live, etc), boot the CD in text mode, and run the parted program to do the nondestructive repartitioning.

Actual installation of Linux is the challenging problem. Neither Fedora 10 nor Ubuntu 8.10 will install a properly working GUI desktop, since the VIA Chrome9 VN896 video driver support under Linux (the Openchrome project) is still experimental.

Fortunately, the up-and-coming release of Debian, code-named "Lenny" seems to have worked out the kinks of the openchrome driver, and so, with some post-installation reconfiguring, Lenny can be made to get GUI working on the Neo-Clevo M540SE.

First you need to repartition the 80GB SATA disk. In my case, I left 30GB for Vista, created 15GB for Linux root, 2-4GB for Linux swap, and the rest for Linux /home. I like leaving generous space for users' home directories, so that if I need to reinstall either Vista or Linux, the users' data in /home can be preserved.

Next you need to download the Debian Lenny installer CD. It is sufficient to download CD-1 only, since the rest of the Debian packages can be downloaded from the Debian internet repositories during and after installation. CD-1 is available as:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/lenny_di_rc1/i386/iso-cd/debian-testing-i386-CD-1.iso

After completing the download, you need to burn this file to a CD. If you are using Nero or a similar CD burning program, you need to set Nero to "burn a CD from an iso-image file". Now stick this CD into the Neo's DVD drive, connect the Neo using a UTP cable to the Internet, and turn the Neo on. The installation may take a while, so it is good to connect the AC adapter to the Neo. While booting, press the [enter] key, move the cursor to the choice [Select Boot Device], and select the option [Boot OptiArc DVD]. The Debian Lenny installer CD will now boot.

At the Main Debian Installation Menu, cursor to the first installation choice [Install], press [TAB], and edit the boot options by adding to the end of the line the boot option "vga=771". Just type this at the end of the line, but without the quotes. Then press the [Enter] key. Installation will now proceed normally. Without this boot option, the installation can not proceed, since you will get an unreadable screen, since the screen will be cut in several pieces, and the pieces will display in a very confusing jumbled up way, that you will be forced to reboot the Neo (by continuously pressing the OFF-ON switch).

During installation, you will be asked to answer various questions. If you live in the Philippines I suggest the following responses: Keyboard: US-English, Language: English/Philippines, Timezone: Asia/Manila or GMT+8 (Taipei), Choice of Debian repository: US/ftp.us.debian.org or JP/ftp.jaist.ac.jp. If you are connected to the Internet during installation, you will be asked to choose which additional package groups to include in the installation. Aside from the the default choices, add "laptop" support.

After installation is completed, you will be asked to remove the installation CD from the DVD drive, and to press the [Enter] key to reboot the Neo. If you are a mouse user, this is a good time to attach a mouse to a USB port. Now remove the installation CD, and press the [Enter] key to reboot.

At the GRUB boot menu, cursor to the second choice [Debian recovery mode], and press [Enter] to select this boot mode. This will boot the Neo to Linux single user mode. At the shell prompt, type

cd /etc/X11
vi xorg.conf

This will allow you to edit the "xorg.conf" file. Look for the section "Screen", and make the following additions to that section:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
SubSection "Display"
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Save your changes (you have to know how to use the vi text editor), and then type the command:

exit

This will continue booting to GUI mode, and you will get a working Debian Lenny installation.

The default wallpaper is a light blue screen with a small red Debian swirl. The Lenny wallpaper that you see in the picture above is designed for the Lenny distribution by Raveenz:

http://www.debian-art.org/content/show.php/Debian+Lenny+Os-Tan?content=90982

http://raveenz.deviantart.com/art/Debian-OS-Tan-99889934

Enjoy!

Happy New Year: Media Noche and Computing (Jan 01 09)

2008-12-31T22:44:00.000-08:00

My family usually spends New Year's Eve at home with us, sharing the traditional Filipino media noche, the midnight dinner of spaghetti, queso de bola, Filipino tsokolate, and fruits. The spaghetti was vegetarian, tomato and mushroom with semola spaghettini. I got the cheap Balducci semola, which is almost half the price of San Remo. For the non-vegetarians we had hotdogs and salami on a separate platter, far away from the vegetarians. We also had vegetarian hotdogs and ham, which my wife bought from Harvesters' Veggie Mart, the vegetable store and bakeshop next to Bodhi Vegetarian on Banawe Street in Quezon City. My neighbor, the Oafallas, gave chicken cordon blue and Korean noodles, so the non-vegetarians had two additional dishes.

Before dinner, we exchanged gifts. Every year, we had this problem of drawing names of the family member for whom we buy our annual Christmas gift. The problem is there were too few members of our family: wife Dulce and myself, son Paul and wife Mia, daughters Karen and Abigail. (This year, Abigail is in France on a Mundus Forum scholarship, so she missed our media noche and gift giving). The chance that we draw our own names was so great that we had to redraw many times until we got a satisfactory draw. This year though, Karen discovered Elfster:

http://www.elfster.com/

and Elfster solved our problem for us. Elfster not only drew unique names for everyone, but also Elfster gave everyone a chance to specify the gift she/he wanted. If you have a small family like ours, you should check out Elfster.

After dinner, I told Paul and Mia that Karen and I are working on a tiling problem that we intend to present to the 2009 Philippine Computing Science Congress in Siliman University, Dumaguete City:

http://computingsoc.blogspot.com/
http://ccs.su.edu.ph/pcsc2009/theconference.html

Mia got Paul interested, and Paul agreed to help. When I showed Paul my notes, he immediately saw a error in my brute force enumeration, which of course, got corrected. The rest of the early morning (after midnight dinner) was spent by my children working on the tiling problem. I believe that this is a good way for a family to spend New Year together.

Happy New Year everyone!

Ubuntu's New Network Manager Autoconnects to Smart (Dec 27 08)

2008-12-26T12:26:00.000-08:00

Ubuntu Intrepid has a new Network Manager that automates the connection to mobile broadband providers Smart, Globe, and Sun. The process of connecting to the dial-up or 3G network has been made simple. First cable your 3G phone to your laptop, then turn the laptop on. After logging in, Network Manager recognizes the 3G connection, and will configure the connection for you, do the auto-dialling, and give you the option of keeping the connection alive. You will be given a list of available providers to choose from, depending on the area where you are located (I think). In my case, the list included Globe, Globe WAP, Smart, and Sun. Since my Nokia 6680 has already been preconfigured with Smart Internet/MMS/etc settings, I chose Smart from the list of choices provided. The connection took only a few seconds, and I had Internet service right away. I was able to check my Ateneo mail and Yahoo mail before things started to go wrong. After a period of use, the connection is dropped and I had to reconnect by clicking on the Network Manager icon on the panel (task bar on top of the screen). This dropping happened several times afterwards, that I got tired, abandoned Network Manager, and reconnected using wvdial instead.

Well, that's so much for Network Manager for me for managing mobile broadband connection. I will stick to wvdial, until I figure out what went wrong.

Big Daddy Laptop: A New Toy (Dec 26 08)

2008-12-25T15:10:00.000-08:00

We spent Christmas day in the traditional Christmas party-reunion of the Guillermo clan. Anyone married to, or are children of, or descendants of, or dating any of the Guillermos was there at the Dennis Lim residence in Don Jose Subdivision in Quezon City. There were many people in the party, including the illegitimate wives and children, which just goes to show how democratic and how prolific the Guillermos are. Our Christmas party will not be complete without the gift-giving part. My niece, Marissa Mesa (sorry for the senior moment, but I forgot her married name) gave me a Big Daddy laptop computer, the red thing shown in the pictures above. The actual advertisement on the package says, Big Daddy Solar Powered Desk Top Calculator. Ay calculator pala, akala ko pa naman ay computer! But computer or not, it is still impressive. It comes in size A4, parang US bond paper sa haba at lapad, at ang kapal ay mga isa't kalahating sentimetro, kaya't manipis lang siya. Tamang tama sa malaking daliri tulad ko, at tamang tama rin sa malabo ang mata na tulad ko. Iba na talaga ang tumatanda. Bakit nga pala Tagalog-Ingles ang post ko ngayon? Pasensiya na, bahagi ng senior moments.

Merry Chrsitmas ulit!

Browsing with Smart 3G (Dec 25 08)

2008-12-24T14:58:00.000-08:00

I was at McDonald's Banawe (near Orthopedic Hospital) last night, waiting for my wife to get off from work, and browsing the Net while waiting. This McDo branch did not have wifi, so I had to connect to the Net using wvdial (ppp) under Ubuntu. I used my Smart Gold Lite (PHP300.00 / month subscription, consumable) using my Nokia 6680 3G phone. Smart promises 384kbits / sec, but last night, I was getting 70-90 KBytes / sec, which is quite surprising, since I hardly get that kind of speed on my Smart Bro 384kbits / sec microwave link at home. Of course, I am not complaining of this good fortune, and am in fact extremely happy about it.

It must be the season. Merry Christmas, Smart Communications!

Merry Christmas! (Dec 24 08)

2008-12-23T15:25:00.000-08:00

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life ... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth"

Merry Christmas, and may you have peace and God's blessing today and for the rest of the New Year. For yourself, for your loved ones, for your neighbors, and for the world. God's peace and blessings be on all of us!

Enjoy life, Linux, Leopard, Windows, and everything that's beautiful! Merry Christmas.

MSI Wind keymap for Mac OSX Leopard (Dec 23 08)

2008-12-22T23:24:00.000-08:00

The keyboard of the MSI Wind does not have Mac labels, so the new Wind Leopard user will have to get familiar with the Wind-to-Mac keyboard mappings. The ALT key on the Wind keyboard actually corresponds to the COMMAND key on the Mac, and the Windows key on the Wind keyboard corresponds to the OPTION key on the Mac.

So the OPTION-COMMAND-ESCAPE key combination to do a force quit of applications is accomplished on the Wind by using the WINDOWS-ALT-ESCAPE key combination. Also the key combination SHIFT-COMMAND-3 to do a screen shot of the entire desktop is done by the key combination SHIFT-ALT-3. Similarly SHIFT-ALT-4 will do a screenshot of a user-selected portion of the desktop.

It should be simple enough to print two key labels "WINDOWS-OPTION" and "ALT-COMMAND" with gummed backing, and stick them onto the two keys, at least until we get used to the keyboard mapping.

Getting the MSI Wind Webcam to Work under Ubuntu (Dec 22 08)

2008-12-21T13:01:00.000-08:00

My MSI Wind triple boots to Windows XP, Mac OSX Leopard, and Ubuntu Intrepid. Since I have been a Linux user (Linux user #5037) since 1993, it is obvious that Ubuntu is my favorite of the three operating systems. So it was quite disappointing when I could not get the proper drivers for Ubuntu for the built-in webcam. What good is Skype when you have no camera?

Fortunately, the MSI website in Taiwan makes available a version of the webcam driver for Suse Linux that works for an older version of the Linux kernel than the one on Ubuntu. Here is the download link:

http://download1.msi.com.tw/files/downloads/dvr_exe/camera_linux_u100_nb.zip

Uncompressing this zip file gives the following rpm package:

uvcvideo-kmp-smp-r171_2.6.16.46_0.12-3.1.i586.rpm

The linux kernel that I am running in Ubuntu is 2.6.27-9-generic, so we see a possible version incompatibility problem. But I proceeded (nevertheless) to install this driver for an older version of the kernel, hoping that it would work for the newer Ubuntu kernel.

First I needed to download "alien", a package for converting Suse/Redhat RPM packages to Ubuntu DEB packages. The following command takes care of the download:

sudo apt-get install alien

If this does not work, you might need to download rpm, rpmlib, libbeecrypt, etc, first, but apt-get is usually intelligent enough to pull in all the dependencies that alien needs.

Next, we use alien to convert from the Suse webcam rpm to a deb package that we can install in Ubuntu. This command takes care of the conversion:

sudo alien -k uvcvideo-kmp-smp-r171_2.6.16.46_0.12-3.1.i586.rpm

This command produces the deb package:

uvcvideo-kmp-smp_r171_2.6.16.46_0.12-3.1_i386.deb

Then all we need to do is install this package:

sudo dpkg -i uvcvideo-kmp-smp_r171_2.6.16.46_0.12-3.1_i386.deb

The lsmod command should show that uvcvideo has been loaded as a driver module:

uvcvideo 62728 0
compat_ioctl32 9344 1 uvcvideo
videodev 41344 1 uvcvideo
v4l1_compat 22404 2 uvcvideo,videodev
video 25104 0
output 11008 1 video

Next we need to download a web camera application. Checking the Net shows that the program "cheese", as in "Say cheese" is a very popular web camera program for Linux. So just go ahead and download it:

sudo apt-get install cheese

On my system, cheese was installed in Applications -> Graphics -> "Cheese Webcam Booth". Now click on that menu item for a proof that your camera works. The enclosed screen shot says it all. Never mind the good looking old man in the picture; just imagine the delicious BK Joe coffee.

Enjoy!

Intrepid Leopard XP on My MSI Wind, Part 2 (Dec 20 08)

2008-12-19T13:46:00.000-08:00

This is the second installment of my account to install Windows XP (SP3), Ubuntu 8.10, and Mac OS X 86 Leopard 10.5.4 on my brand new MSI Wind U100x, so that this UMPC triple boots to any of the three OSs.

In my earlier post, I mentioned that PC Corner created a 30GB primary partition and installed the default (legally licensed) Windows XP there.

When I got home, I prepared a USB installer for Ubuntu 8.10. I already have an iso image of Ubuntu 8.10 upgraded with the latest packages, plus development packages of my choice,which include gcc, g++, perl, mysql, etc. This iso image is available for download from

http://curry.ateneo.net/~ambo/yebuntu.html

On my desktop at home, I created the Ubuntu USB thumbdrive installer from the Yebuntu iso image, using the Unetbootin utility, available for download from:

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

I then booted the MSI Wind using this Ubuntu USB installer. I created a 30GB primary partition that I reserved for Leopard, a 30GB primary partition for Ubuntu, and the rest of the 160GB I created into logical partitions for Linux swap (4GB swap for my 2GB real memory) and Linux /home. The installation of Ubuntu proceeded without problems, and the default grub bootloader was installed in the boot sector of /dev/sda. I then made some desktop reconfiguring to allow me to conveniently use the 1024x600 screen, as mentioned in my previous post.

Next comes the magical moment: the installation of Leopard on the MSI Wind.

First you must buy a license to use Leopard. In the Philippines,you need to go to any of the Power Mac Centers to buy your license:

http://www.powermaccenter.com/contact.php

A single PC license will cost you a little over PHP7,000.00. If you are a student or an educator, you can get an academic discount:

http://store.apple.com/ph-k12/product/MB576Z/A?fnode=MTY1NDAzOA&mco=MTYwMDcyMg

and the Leopard license will cost you only PHP6,690.00. I wish, though, that Apple will sell the license to teachers at ten percent of a public school teacher's salary, or under PHP2,000.00, so that it becomes more affordable to teachers in the third world, like the Philippines. Software licenses should be priced like books, so that students and teachers have not only the freedom, but also the ability, to buy them.

So much for the advocacy. Now for the hard work.

The original Leopard DVD will not install on the MSI Wind. Use your favorite torrent program to download the file MSIWindosx86.iso, which is available from many torrent sites on the Net. The 3.5GB iso image took me around two days to download on my 384k SmartBro microwave link. Then you need to burn this file as a DVD image, using your DVD burner.

Now, the MSI Wind does not have a DVD drive, so you need to cable your external DVD drive to a USB port of the Wind. Place the MSIWindosx86 DVD in the DVD drive, and power up the Wind. Press F11, and select the USB DVD drive as boot device. The Leopard installer will boot. When you see the [Mac Installer] task bar appear, select [Utilities], and click on [Disk~Utility]. On the left frame, you will be shown the various partitions available for installing Leopard. In my case, the partitions are:

Partition1: NTFS for WinXP

Partition2: Linux (free)

Partition3: Linux (containing Ubuntu)

etc

Now click on Partition2, and click on erase to format the partition. In the drop-down menu, select the partition type [HFS extended, journaled]. Name the partition with some convenient name, like Leopard, and then click [erase]. Now exit the Disk Utility [click on the red button]. When you reach the final installation screen, click on [Customize], select [Patches], and uncheck the [Kernel] patches, since the kernel patches are for the AMD processor, and will not work with the Atom processor of the Wind. Exit the customize screen, and click on [Install]. The installation will take about 30 minutes or longer. At the end of the installation, you will be asked to reboot the system. When the system reboots, uncable the DVD drive, and you will be booted into Ubuntu (my default choice, since I am using the grub bootloader).

While in Ubuntu, you need to fix the boot order. Go to /boot/grub, and edit the file menu.lst

cd /boot/grub

sudo gedit menu.lst

At the end of the file menu.lst add the following entries for Leopard:

title Mac OS X 86 Leopard (Darwin 10.5.4)

rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

In the entry "rootnoverify (hd0,1)", the device (hd0,1) stands for /dev/sda2, where Leopard is installed. Next look for the line with the entry

hiddenmenu

Comment out this line by preceding it with a sharp sign, so that it now looks like:

#hiddenmenu

Now save the file menu.lst, and reboot the system. When the system reboots, you will be given a grub menu from which you can select which of the three operating systems to boot:

Windows XP, Ubuntu, or Leopard.

If you select Leopard, you will get an initial welcoming screen where you can enter your user data. After this, your Leopard system is ready to use. You will discover that the wireless card and the web camera do not work.

Just recently, Realtek Taiwan made available the Leopard driver for the RTL8187SE wireless adapter on the MSI Wind,you can download the driver from RapidShare:

http://rapidshare.com/files/171809218/Realtek_RTL8187SE_MacOS10.5_Driver_073_UI_1.6.2.zip

Now you can truly enjoy your MSI Wind Mac Mini Leopard 10.5.4!

Please get your legitimate Mac license, from the URLs that I mentioned above. Thanks.

Intrepid Leopard XP on My MSI Wind (Dec 17 08)

2008-12-16T13:17:00.000-08:00

My wife told me that my Dell Inspiron 6000 was too heavy at over two kilos, for an old man like me to be toting around. So I got myself an MSI Wind U100x, which weighs just a little over one kilo. This Wind had the famous Atom N270 processor that runs at 1.6GHz, 2GB memory, 160GB SATA disk, six-cell battery providing about 3.5 hours at this configuration, and cost me about PHP21,500.00 at PC Corner on Gilmore Street in Quezon City.

I asked the store technician to install the default WinXP Home (SP3) on a 30GB partition. This is the Microsoft-licensed OEM version that ships with the Wind.

When I got home, I prepared an Ubuntu 8.10 installer on a 2GB USB thumbdrive, using my Yebuntu installer, a Ubuntu installer with development packages and manpages-dev and various developer documentation. Yebuntu can be downloaded from:

http://curry.ateneo.net/~ambo/yebuntu.html

Aside from the 30GB primary partition containing Windows, I created a 30GB primary partition for Mac OSX Leopard, a 30GB primary partition for Linux root, and the rest of the 160GB as extended partitions for Linux swap and Linux /home. Ubuntu 8.10 installed without problems, except that I had to get the Realtek 8187se WiFi driver from

http://boskastrona.ovh.org/

Ubuntu runs fine on the Wind. I had to remove the bottom panel and retained only the top panel (task bar), since the 1024x600 resolution is too little for two panels. But one top panel is fine. I added to the top panel a Window Selector, to select from active windows using a menu. If you add a Window List instead, you can select from active windows using buttons, but the top panel becomes too crowded with buttons that you can not read the button text anymore, making them useless for switching between windows.

Next I will describe how I installed Mac OS X 86 Leopard 10.5.4 on the MSI Wind. More on the next post.

Installing Microsoft truetype fonts in Ubuntu

2008-12-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

A. Create the Microsoft truetype directory in Ubuntu:

sudo mkdir /usr/share/fonts/truetype/microsoft

B. Copy the ttf and TTF fonts from the Windows Fonts directory into the directory created in step 1. Here ${NTFSHOME} is the mountpoint in Ubuntu of your Windows filesystem (when using ntfs-3g). Otherwise, just copy all the ttf/TTF files from Windows onto USB thumbdrive and transfer to Ubuntu:

cd /usr/share/fonts/truetype/microsoft
sudo cp ${NTFSHOME}/WINDOWS/Fonts/{*ttf,*TTF} .

C. Make all the ttf/TTF files readable by everyone (when copied from USB it is probably rwx by root and no permissions for anyone else--this is bad):

sudo chmod 644 *ttf *TTF

D. Install the ttmkfdir package. Omit this step if you already have it:

sudo apt-get install ttmkfdir

E. Create the fonts.scale and fonts.dir files in the microsoft truetype directory:

cd /usr/share/fonts/truetype/microsoft
sudo ttmkfdir *ttf *TTF
sudo cp fonts.scale fonts.dir

F. Recreate the font-cache files for X font server

sudo fc-cache -f -v

G. Start OpenOffice writer and check if you can access the fonts "Times New Roman" and "Arial". If you can, then you are done. Congratulations!

oowriter

Oh Unix, Oh Linux! (Dec 02 08)

2008-12-01T13:08:00.000-08:00

I have read three nonfiction novels about Unix/Linux, and I thoroughly enjoyed all three. For someone who reads only Tom Clancy, Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, George Martin, Orson Scott Card, Terry Brooks, and similar fantasy authors, this is saying something heavy and important about these Unix/Linux stories.

First is the novel "Quarter Century of Unix" by Peter Salus. Here Salus talks about how the CSRG folks Kernighan, Ritchie, and friends at Bell Labs wrote the Unix operating system in the early 1970s. Next is the novel "Soul of a New Machine" by Tracy Kidder. This is a suspense thriller about how programmers at Data General (now nonexistent, like Digital Equipment Corporation) ported the Unix OS to their new 32bit minicomputer. The third one is the almost-autobiography "Just For Fun" in which Linus Torvalds talks to writer David Diamond about why and how he wrote the very popular Linux OS, a modern Unix-workalike, now sweeping the computer world like a storm.

I recommend these three novels to all computer science students, and even to normal folks. They are all very nice reads, and they give you an idea about all the excitement that surrounds the life of a programmer.

Corruption in the Philippines (Nov 15 08)

2008-11-15T02:11:00.000-08:00

While in bed at the hospital, or resting at home after my hospitalization, I had occasion to watch the entire proceedings of the Senate inquiry into the Agriculture Undersecretary Jocjoc Bolante's "Fertilizer Scam" and Police Controller De La Paz's "Euro Contingency Fund". I have come to the conclusion that we are NOT the most corrupt country in the world. Corruption happens everywhere, even in the United States of America, and we are not any better or worse than the U.S.A in the matter of corrupt practices of government officials or their friends. What we are well-known for is the ability of our media (radio, TV, print) to expose in a grand scale corruption, no matter how big or small, and blow that issue out for the world to see and to label us as the most corrupt country in the world. The Senate, of course, is contributing to enhancing this popular image of the Philippines as the most corrupt country in the world, by its addiction to TV coverage of all the lurid details of its investigations in "aid of legislation", which also happens to provide free advertising for the presidential wanna-be's in 2010. In our desire for "transparency", which is a "good thing", we give the impression to the world that corruption is everywhere, when in reality, we are just successful in exposing corruption in many more cases here, than the rest of the world. But is that not a good thing?

Journey into Myself (Nov 15 08)

2008-11-15T01:40:00.000-08:00

The past few weeks have been terrible for me. I was hospitalized in Medical City in October 22-26 for extreme allergies to antibiotics, to rule out Steven-Johnson syndrome. Then again I was hospitalized in St. Luke's in November 11-13 for vertigo, and to get cardiac and colonic check up. For several occasions this year, I had severe vertigo attacks, requiring me to assume a restricted positioning of the head when lying down or sitting up, for otherwise, the world literally spins, causing extreme dizziness and nausea, and preventing me from doing the normal work of a teacher. Carotid ultrasound revealed that circulation to my head was normal, and so the vertigo could not be due to bad circulation to the head. The vertigo must, therefore, be vestibular in origin, that part of the inner ear that contributes to sense of balance and spatial orientation. Dr. Allan Carpella prescribed Serc 24mg two times a day, an increase in dosage from the old magic of Serc 8mg three times a day. Furthermore, he prescribed head rotation exercises, which seem to be doing some good.

During this interlude at St. Luke's, Dr. Canlas did a colonoscopy, a detailed movie-camera exploration of my large intestines, to check if the irregular bowel movement of this 62-year old man is colonic in origin. To prepare, I was starved from 8:30 PM of the evening before the colonoscopy up to the actual colonoscopy itself, which happened at 12:30 PM of the following day. Which means 16 hours NPO -- no food or drink. I was given 4 tablets of Dulcolax, and two 250 ml bottles of liquid magnesium citrate -- and these constituted the enema to flush out the colonic contents. When I was a small boy, my mother accomplished this enema by using one bag-full of lukewarm soapy water to flush out colonic contents, which, by the way, is many times more effective than Dulcolax plus magnesium citrate. By 12:30 PM, I was so hungry and so weak, that all I wanted was for the procedure to be over. Dr. Canlas was assisted by anaesthesiologist Dra. Estrella. I requested Dra. Estrella if I could be kept awake so that I can watch the colonoscopy on the TV monitor, and she agreed to use only the smallest dose of anaesthetic. As Dr. Canlas performed the colonoscopy, I kept asking questions. Have we passed the transverse colon yet? Why is the pechay that I ate still intact and undigested? Is that mucus from my congested nose that I see in my colon? And Dr. Canlas was saying: I see a polyp, but it looks benign, but I'm going to take it out, nevetheless - for biopsy. And so on. Watching a journey into your own colon, complete with tour-guide explanations from the doctor, can be a very enlightening experience. How many people that you know have experienced such scientific adventure? I have.

Murphy's Law in My Life (2008 Nov 07)

2008-11-06T22:55:00.000-08:00

Since my last post a month ago, a lot of things have happened to me. We had final exams for the first semester at Ateneo de Manila University, and I had to struggle through grading my students' exam papers. I accompanied the Ateneo programming team to the ACM-ICPC Asia-Jakarta regional programming contest, where we came out at rank 19 among 49 teams of collegiate programmers, our most dismal performance in a regional contest since year 2000. I got hospitalized in Medical City for four days in October 22-26, as soon as we arrived in Manila from Jakarta, for severe allergy to Flucloxacillin and Cefuroxime. I had diabetic foot infection, and Dr. Tongson of Capitol Medical Center prescribed Flucloxacillin when I told him that I did not have any allergy to antibiotics (which is the truth at that time in my life). Fluxcloxacillin is so new and as yet untried by me, and I did not know that I would have such severe reaction to it. When I showed Dr. Tongson allergic rashes on the upper surface of my hand, he immediately changed my antibiotic to Cefuroxime, another antibiotic that is so new and untried by me. The Cefuroxime only aggravated my allergy, and I did not know what to do except to write emails to Dr. Tongson, since we were already in Jakarta. I could not even buy the anti-allergy medicines that my wife was suggesting for two reasons: (1) I do not have a doctor's prescription since Dr. Tongson did not check his emails. (2) Even if I produce a fake doctor's prescription, I do not know how to get the prescription filled in Jakarta. I had to wait until we got back to Manila before my allergy could be treated. Since Medical City was the closest to where I live, in Antipolo ibaba, near Sta Lucia mall, my wife decided to bring me there for consultation. The emergency room doctor recommended confinement to rule out Steven-Johnson syndrome (sounds like Murphy's Out-of-Luck Syndrome). Dr. Kasala, endrocrinologist-diabetologist, and wife Dra. Kasala, allergologist (I did not even know that such specializations existed, foot-diabetologist?) eventually ruled out Steven-Johnson syndrome. I was given intramuscular injections of steriods until both left and right arms would not accept any more injections. I was given insulin to counter the increase in blood glucose that is a by product of steriod therapy. I was given isotonic intravenous drip where a host of other medicines were injected. My hospital confinement was the most unpleasurable four days of my entire life, and add to that the fact that the hospitalization cost me PHP37,000.00, after senior citizen discount. I had to pay this amount from my personal funds, since Ateneo took away my HMO card when I retired in 2006. Why is the Philippine HMO system and Ateneo so unfair that you are not entitled to HMO benefits when you need it most?

Why do Filipino doctors today prescribe the most expensive medicines, in a country (the Philippines) which sells the most expensive medicines in all of Asia? Do Filipino doctors and pharmaceutical companies have a conspiracy to kill patients by prescribing medicines that patients can not afford to buy? Dr. Tongson prescribed Flucloxacillin and Cefuroxime, probably the most expensive antibiotics in Manila. Dr. Kasala prescribed Actos 15mg, an antibiabetic pill that sells for about PHP188.00 each pill (the cost is so much it can kill you).

Now I believe in Murphy's Law, and it applies when you least expect it.

Yebuntu: Programmer's Ubuntu (Oct 08 08)

2008-10-07T18:24:00.000-07:00

I wanted to create my own Ubuntu distribution, which will satisfy my requirements as a developer/programmer. It should have C, C++, Java, Perl, MySQL, Apache, etc. It should also have the manpages, manpages-dev, and java-docs. I would not mind if it did not have Eclipse or Netbeans, since I do not want a very big and heavy distribution. Ideally it should fit in one CD, but if it slightly bigger, it would be acceptable if it had all the above programmer's utilities. Now I came upon the Ubuntu program remastersys, which is ideal for creating such a distro, so I got remastersys, and tried it out. If you have your Windows partition mounted under Linux, you should first unmount it, so that it is not included in the remastering process. The result is my own flavor of Ubuntu, which I now call Yebuntu. Originally, I wanted to call it Devbuntu, or Debuntu, or Progbuntu, etc. Those names are already taken, but Yebuntu is free, so I decided to use that name instead. You can download a copy of the iso image of Yebuntu from the site:
http://curry.ateneo.net/~ambo/yebuntu.html

La Boheme (Oct 01 08)

2008-09-30T05:12:00.000-07:00

I saw this invitation from TheBachelorGirl to come watch the run-through rehearsal of La Boheme at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Main Theater in the evening of October 1, 2008:

http://www.thebachelorgirl.com/2008/1035/an-invite-for-bloggers-to-compare-la-boheme-and-rent/

To help bloggers do the comparison, BachelorGirl gave this link to Karla Gutz' comparison of La Boheme and Rent:

http://karlagutz.multiply.com/journal/item/120

On Monday night, I saw a sneak preview on TV of La Boheme as it will be shown at the CCP, and I watched "Mimi" singing one of the most beautiful love songs that I have ever heard. The song (operatic aria) was in Italian, and my knowledge of Italian is zero, so I did not understand the lyrics, but the melody was a perfect reminder of an English love song that I heard when I was in grade school. I checked with Google and found that the love song was by Della Reese in the late 1950s and was entitled "Don't You Know":

http://www.lyricsdepot.com/della-reese/dont-you-know.html

Here are the lyrics:

Don't you know
I have fallen in love with you
For the rest of my whole life through

Don't you know
I was yours from the very day
That you happened to come my way

Can't you see
I'm under your spell
By the look in my eyes
Can't you tell, can't you tell

Now, don't you know
Every beat of my heart keeps crying out
I love you so
Don't you know

Don't you know
Every beat of my heart keeps crying out
I love you so
Don't you know

You can hear Della Resse's original rendition of "Don't You Know" on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKO5PleuvGA

To prepare to see the run-through rehearsal of "La Boheme", I decided to read up on the opera. Fortunately, a libretto in English, together with musical score is available from the University of Indiana:

http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/variations/scores/bhq3853/large/index.html

Unfortunately, this version is available only for online viewing, and can not be downloaded. But, since "La Boheme" is quite old and should be in the public domain, Gutenberg Project has made the English libretto available for download:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13843

Isn't the Internet wonderful? You not only get the new stuff, but the classics as well.

Confucius Day (Sep 28 08)

2008-09-28T00:20:00.000-07:00

Today, September 28, 2008, Asians celebrate Confucius' birthday. Confucius is the English name of the Chinese philosopher Kong Tzi. Many Chinese schools in the Philippines also celebrate today as Teachers' Day, because Kong Tzi was a teacher, the most famous one.

To Kong Tzi, where ever you are, happy birthday! To all teachers, happy teachers' day. May our tribe increase!

Pinoy English (Sep 25 08)

2008-09-24T19:03:00.000-07:00

My daughter Karen saw this on TV.

After a game of 9-ball pool in which Filipino champion Joven Bustamante (or is it Dennis Orcullo?) won the game against a Chinese Taipei player, Georgina Chang was interviewing the Filipino winner of the game.

Georgina: What do you think is your edge against your opponent?

Joven: I heard that he is 35 years old. I am only 29.

Of course, most of our 9-ball pool players are world class: Joven, Dennis, Alex, etc. With them winning the important tournaments, who cares if their English is not world class.

Mabuhay ang Pinoy pool players! Sana ay kumita kayo ng limpak-limpak tulad ni Manny Pacquiao, at ng makatulong kayo sa kapwa niyo Pinoy!

Didith: I'm Not the Only One (Sep 23 08)

2008-09-23T03:03:00.000-07:00

In the Wikiquote page for Linus Torvalds:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds

he is quoted as saying:

Software is like sex; it's better when it's free.
[Attributed to Torvalds at 1996 FSF conference]

So, Didith, if the God of Linux can talk like this, does this give me a license to talk the same way?

What's Wrong with Fedora Revisor (Sep 15 08)

2008-09-14T16:01:00.000-07:00

Revisor is the Fedora package that allows you to create your own installer CDs/DVDs/USBsticks that include the latest versions of packages available at the time of creation of the installers. The original Fedora-9 installer DVD:

http://ftp.cse.yzu.edu.tw/pub/Linux/Fedora/releases/9/Fedora/i386/iso/Fedora-9-i386-DVD.iso

was made available for download on May 8, 2008, and included the latest Fedora packages as of May 8, which includes Linux kernel version 2.6.25-14. If you used Revisor today, you could create an updated Fedora installer DVD with all the latest versions of packages as of today, and will include Linux kernel version 2.6.26.3-29 which is the latest version of the kernel available from a mirror site:

http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/fedora.redhat/linux/updates/9/i386.newkey/kernel-2.6.26.3-29.fc9.i686.rpm

When I was using Fedora-8, Revisor worked perfectly, and I could generate updated installers for Fedora-8 regularly, on a monthly basis if I wanted to. Now that I am using Fedora-9, I could not get Revisor to work anymore. First, there was this inability of Revisor (or yum) to macro-replace the variables $releasever and $basearch in the *.repo and *.conf files in /etc/yum.repos.d and in /etc/revisor/conf.d. So I manually did the macro-replacements, making sure that every occurrence of $releasever was replaced with "9", and every occurrence of $basearch is replaced by "i386" or "x86_64", depending on which system I am running Revisor on. So Revisor was successfully able to download the all the packages or their latest updates. I reached up to the point when Revisor is now creating the iso images of the installers, and at this point the programs mkisofs and implantisomd5 both exit with errors, and the installer CD/DVD is not created. I googled these Revisor errors, and the various Revisor fora do not mention these problems at all.

If you are working with Revisor for Fedora-9, I would appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction, and help me solve my problem. Thanks.

Empty Nest (Almost) (Sep 15 08)

2008-09-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

I have three children.
1. Abigail, BS. Physics 1995 Ateneo, B.S. Computer Engineering 1996 Ateneo,
2. Paul, B.S. Physics 1996 Ateneo, B.S. Computer Engineering 1997 Ateneo,
3. Karen, B.S. Molecular Biology & Biotech, Summa cum Laude, 2006, UP, Palanca 1st Prize 2005 Futuristic Fiction

Paul got married to Mia in 2006. He now lives with her in another house, but visits from time to time on weekends.

Karen is waiting for a research assistant position from an American university, and in the meantime, has accepted a research assistant position at the University of the Philippines National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. She still lives with us, writes fiction and poetry on her tiny MSI Wind notebook, and experiments on vegetarian/healthy cooking.

Gail went to Reims, France on September 7, 2008, and will be away for two years on a Mundusfor grant to do a masters degree in education. Last Sunday was the first weekend that she was not at home. The house felt empty with only Karen, my wife, and me.

When Karen leaves for graduate studies, the house will be truly an empty nest.

But our house is not really empty. We have ten dogs, a few cats, and many wild birds eating the ripe guavas in my garden!

Life is good. All we have to do is live it!

How to Create Your Own Website (Sep 7 08)

2008-09-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

First you should read the following document on how to create your own website:

http://www.thesitewizard.com/gettingstarted/startwebsite.shtml

Even if you do not create your own website, but you hire a professional web designer, you should read this document, since it gives you an idea of the activities involved in creating a web site.

You might want your website to be interactive (allowing inputs from your viewers) and dynamic (allowing the page contents to change depending on who the viewer is). For interactive, dynamic content, you need Javascript, PHP, and Perl, and this document tells you what they are:

http://www.thesitewizard.com/html-tutorial/what-is-html.shtml

Where do you put your website? You have two options.

(1) Buy your own high-end Intel PC with lots of disk space, install Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP-Perl (Fedora-9 Linux with web-server and development support will be sufficient for this) and connect this PC to the Internet using a PLDT myDSL connection or Globe DSL. PLDT or Globe has to give you a live IP address so that your PC can be reached from the outside world, and such an account can be very expensive.

(2) Rent web space from a web hosting company. The monthly rent varies, depending on how much disk space the web hosting company gives you, the number of domain names you carry, monthly data transfer volume, how many webmail accounts you want, web-design and programming tools available, and website control tools.

The following document compares the top 15 web hosting companies in the Philippines. You should check them all and find out which one suits your budget and gives you the design and programming power that you need.

http://www.webhosting.info/webhosts/tophosts/Country/PH

At the Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG), where I am a member, we have an active discussion on the best "value-for-money" web hosting services available for Filipinos. These web hosting services do not have to be situated in the Philippines, since most Philippine internet service providers (ISPs) are one-hop away from the US, so US web hosting services are just as good for Filipinos. Furthermore, local ISPs are not even connected directly to each other, and so in a way, a local web hosting service may not be the best location for your website. The following are popular web hosting companies for members of PLUG.

1. web.com.ph
2. www.bizhost.ph
3. www.itdev.ca

They are listed in order from cheapest to most expensive. The more expensive web hosting services usually offer more space, bandwidth, tools, etc.

I hope that you find these links useful when you build your website.

Barack Obama's Democratic National Convention Acceptance Speech (Aug 29 08)

2008-08-28T20:55:00.000-07:00

Day 4 of the Democratic National Convention, August 28, 2008, 6:00 pm in the United States and August 29 in the Philippines, and Barack Obama delivers his speech accepting his nomination as presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. This is a great historic moment for America, the first time a black candidate will run for the highest office of the land. This is a chance for America to prove that it is a true democracy; that it can uphold in principle and in practice that all men are created equal, regardless of race, or sex, or religion. Here is MSNBC's video of Barack Obama's speech: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/26447607#26447607

A report on this speech is given in FoxNews, but it is better to see the entire video of his speech. I am not American, and I can not tell the Americans how to vote in this election. But if the Americans do not vote for Barack Obama, then I believe that America will have lost another opportunity for greateness.

Installers for Debian Lenny (Debian Testing) (Aug 29 08)

2008-08-28T16:23:00.000-07:00

The current release of the Debian distribution of Linux is version 4.0r4 and is codenamed "Debian Etch". This was released on July 26, 2008, and comes with kernel version 2.6.18. If you want a kernel and packages that are very well tested and works reliably, this is the Debian version to use.

If you are one of the Debian developers, you have to use the unstable release of Debian called Debian SID (still in development). This is the version in which packages are initially tested and if any of the packages breaks, the developers normally know what to do to fix the bugs.

Somewhere between the stable "Etch" and the unstable "SID" is the almost-stable "Lenny". Packages that have been tested in SID (don't break easily) are submitted to Lenny for further testing. After a package is tested in Lenny and found to be stable, it is promoted to Etch.

One nice feature of Lenny is that packages are almost bleeding-edge, and yet reasonably stable. For example, it uses kernel version 2.6.25, iceape (firefox) 3.0.1, and openoffice 2.4.1. That is why I love to use Lenny.

There are three different "versions" of the Lenny installers that you can use. These are (from most stable installer to least stable installer) Lenny Beta2, Lenny Weekly-Build, and Lenny Daily-Build. I recommend the use of Lenny Beta2 and Lenny Weekly-Build, but not the Lenny Daily-Build installer. On more than one occasion, I get install errors, and the installation could not proceed when using Lenny Daily-Build, and the behavior of the resulting partial installation on the hard disk is unpredictable.

Also, for Lenny Beta2 and Lenny Weekly-Build, you have the option of installing a 150MB netinstall iso image, or one or more 650MB CDs, or one or more 4.4GB DVDs. If you use the 150MB netinstall iso image, only the core os components are installed, and the rest of the installation is done by downloading from the Debian mirrors during the installation. If you have a 384KB SmartBro connection like the one I have at home, netinstall will require 12 to 18 hours to complete downloading, depending on the Debian mirror used, and on the packages that you selected to install. I like using the first CD or the first DVD to install Debian Lenny, so that only a few hundred more packages need be downloaded from the Debian mirrors during the actual installation.

You know that you are installing Debian Lenny, if you get the following initial installation screen:
The actual installers themselves can be downloaded from www.debian.org. If you are having problems locating the installation images, you can use the following links. The Gnome, KDE, and Xfce CD installers for Lenny Beta2 are available from the following links:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/lenny_di_beta2/i386/iso-cd/debian-LennyBeta2-i386-CD-1.iso
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/lenny_di_beta2/i386/iso-cd/debian-LennyBeta2-i386-kde-CD-1.iso
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/lenny_di_beta2/i386/iso-cd/debian-LennyBeta2-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso

The Gnome, KDE, and Xfce CD installers for Lenny Weekly-Build are available from the following links:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/weekly-builds/i386/iso-cd/debian-testing-i386-CD-1.iso
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/weekly-builds/i386/iso-cd/debian-testing-i386-kde-CD-1.iso
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/weekly-builds/i386/iso-cd/debian-testing-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso

The 150MB-180MB Gnome netinstaller for Lenny Daily build, if you are bold enough to face possible installation breakage, is available from the follwoing link:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/daily-builds/daily/arch-latest/i386/iso-cd/debian-testing-i386-netinst.iso

Whatever installation method that you use, you would not regret installing the greatest and the best Linux distribution: Debian Lenny.

Vege-Sandwich at Starbucks (Aug 22 08)

2008-08-24T20:02:00.000-07:00

On most Fridays, I have a breakfast of coffee and sandwich at Starbucks. Since I'm vegetarian (lacto-ovo vegetarian: milk products, eggs, vegetables) I have problems selecting a proper sandwich from the Starbucks menu. Recently, however, they started offering a sandwich of tomatoes, cheese, and basil on multi-grain bagel. This is high-protein food, with the protein coming from the bagel and the cheese. This would have been a non-cholesterol breakfast, if not for the cheese. The sandwich is really good, that is, if you are vegetarian like me.

Bon appétit!

Xubuntu Workbench: Wow!!!

2008-08-24T15:27:00.000-07:00

During Ubuntu Loveday last Saturday, August 23, 2008, one of the presenters talked about Ubuntu derivatives. One derivative that he mentioned is Xubuntu Developers Workbench. I googled and found its download site in:

http://my-codebits.site88.net/workbench/index.html

The installer is a 1.6GB DVD iso image, and since my DVD drive is not working anymore, I decided to use Unetbootin to prepare a USB stick installer from the Workbench DVD iso file. Unetbootin is available from:

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Using the USB stick installer, I installed Workbench on our old Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, on which I have 2GB ram. I believe that 2GB ram is just the right amount for program development. After installation, I got the beautiful desktop shown.

Some things worth noting: the base operating system is Xubuntu, so that you get a lightweight desktop environment. Workbench then adds in loads of developer utilities including Anjuta, Bluefish, Eclipse, Gambas, Geany, Glade, Lazarus, Monodevelop, Netbeans, SVNWorkbench, Umbrello, and wxGlade. Also added in are lots of different editors like Gedit, Cssed, gPHPed, HexEditor, ManEdit, Poedit, etc. You will find the desktop excellent and wonderful since you get a MacOS-Leopard-like dock, and your choice of screenlets like CPU meter, Clock, NewsFeed, Weather, etc.

After installation, I checked if all the tools that I needed are already there. I found that I had to install the following myself: manpages-dev, g++, gmp3, and mysql-server and apache which I need for LAMP-development (LAMP stands for Linux-Apache-MySQL-Perl for me, but Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP for others).

YouTube worked right away, which means that Firefox-3 has pre-installed flash. I'm still trying to get Totem to play DVDs, but I'm not sure if the problem is the lack of proper codec or my hardware problem with the built-in Sony DVD/RW.

I strongly recommend Workbench for students of computer science who have to do a lot of programming in various languages, and for professional developers.

Karen Celebrates 23rd Birthday

2008-08-10T20:08:00.000-07:00

My daughter Karen turned 23 yesterday, August 10, 2008. We had dinner at "Fish Out of Water" in Glorietta 5. We were a small group: Karen and friend Jerik, Paul and wife Mia, oldest daughter Abigail, wife Dulce, and myself. Since my wife and I are both vegetarians, we had very few choices, but the choices we made were quite delicious: squash soup, saluyot-lettuce salad, eggplant parmigiana on spaghetti with pine nuts. The children had semi-hot prawns, pork barbecue, fried tilapia sliced butterfly style, and ostrich on shiitake-mushroom-rice. The bill was reasonable, the place has ambiance, and the service is excellent.

After dinner we had crepes and coffee in Glorietta 3. If you are not diabetic, you'll love crepes for dessert: peach-chococate-icecream, apple-icecream, and mango-cream. All sinfully sweet!

Happy birthday Karen.

My Yahoo Blog

2007-05-19T20:40:00.000-07:00

Here are my latest posts in my yahoo blog:

http://360.yahoo.com/prmanalastas

Davao International Airport is WIFI Rich (May 20, 2007)
Tags: davaoairporthotspots, smartwifi, globewifi | Edit Tags
Sunday May 20, 2007 - 11:35am (CST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Neo Laptop & LCD Projectors (May 19, 2007)
Tags: lcdprojection, lcdprojectionwithneolaptop, lcdprojectionwithdelllaptop | Edit Tags
Saturday May 19, 2007 - 05:40pm (CST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Ateneo de Davao Wireless from Marco Polo Terrace (May 18, 2007)
Tags: ateneodedavaowifi, marcopologlobewifi | Edit Tags
Friday May 18, 2007 - 10:15pm (CST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Neo Empriva 540 SVB Laptop (May 17, 2007)
Tags: delllatituded300xtlaptop, neoempriva540svblaptop | Edit Tags
Thursday May 17, 2007 - 05:09pm (CST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 1 Comment

My Yahoo Blog

2007-05-16T03:47:00.000-07:00

I have another blog site at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/prmanalastas.
Since I do not want to duplicate my entries there onto here, I will post only the titles of blog entries there. Here are some of my posts:

My vote, if it counts (May 16, 2007)
Tags: philippineelections, senatorialcandidates
Wednesday May 16, 2007 - 06:27am (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Karen, the writer (May 15, 2007)
Tags: karenkatrinamanalastas, treasureislands, palanca
Tuesday May 15, 2007 - 06:27pm (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Computer Science & Linux at University of Phnom Penh (May 08, 2007)
Tags: universityofphnompenh
Tuesday May 8, 2007 - 11:25pm (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Problems with my Dell Laptop (May 08, 2007)
Tags: problemswithdelli6000
Tuesday May 8, 2007 - 06:37am (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Knowing Ourselves; Knowing Others (May 04, 2007)
Tags: orsonscottcard, ender'sgame, ender'sshadow, bean
Friday May 4, 2007 - 11:36pm (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Fire at Great Eastern Hotel (May 03, 2007)
Tags: hotelfire, greateasternhotel
Friday May 4, 2007 - 12:21am (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Bubble-Wrap Your Laptop (May 03, 2007)
Tags: laptopbag, bubblewrap, computingsocietyofthephilippines
Thursday May 3, 2007 - 11:43pm (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Fedora 7 on Dell Inspiron 6000 (May 01, 2007)
Tags: dell-i6000, fedora-7, linux
Tuesday May 1, 2007 - 11:31pm (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Comparison: Ubuntu 7.04 vs. Windows Vista (April 30, 2007)
Monday April 30, 2007 - 02:10pm (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Marco Polo Hotel (Davao) Vegetarian Food (April 30, 2007)
Tags: vegetarianfood, vegetariansalad, marcopolohoteldavao
Monday April 30, 2007 - 11:35am (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Declarative Programming (April 30, 2007)
Tags: programmingparadigms, wellformedformulas, prenexnormalform, skolemstandardform, conjunctivenormalform, hornclause, prolog, gprolog
Monday April 30, 2007 - 11:16am (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Eggs Marasigan (April 25, 2007)
Tags: eggsmarasigan, xavieruniversity, cprogramming, cholesterol, omelet
Wednesday April 25, 2007 - 06:13am (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Heroes: Season 1 Episodes 14-18 (April 23, 2007)
Tags: heroes, peterpetrelli, clairebennet, nathanpetrelli
Monday April 23, 2007 - 06:20pm (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Fedora 7: Release 6.92 vs 6.93 (April 23, 2007)
Monday April 23, 2007 - 01:10pm (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

My Fedora 7 (6.92) Installation (April 22, 2007)
Tags: grub.conf, rhgb, vga=791
Sunday April 22, 2007 - 09:02am (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Ateneo ACM Programming Teams (April 21, 2007)
Tags: acm-icpc, ateneoacmprogrammingteams
Saturday April 21, 2007 - 04:45pm (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Debian Lenny vs. Fedora 7 (April 21, 2007)
Tags: debianlenny, fedora7, gnu/linux/os
Saturday April 21, 2007 - 12:57pm (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Ateneo de Davao University and Marco Polo Hotel (April 16, 2007)
Tags: ateneodedavaouniversity, msinformationtechnology, marcopolohotel
Monday April 16, 2007 - 12:16pm (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Xavier School: Students I Remember (April 12, 2007)
Tags: xavierschool, edwardwang, jaimeesquivel, harleysy, herbertsy, dannyhuang, johnnygo, rudyang, basilvaldez, henrysy
Thursday April 12, 2007 - 10:07am (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Happy Easter! (April 08, 2007)
Tags: happyeaster, jesus, resurrection
Sunday April 8, 2007 - 09:26pm (CST) Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Problem D: 2006 Programming Contest World Finals

2006-10-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

In the 2006 World Finals of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) which was held in San Antonio, Texas, in April, the following was given as Problem D.

"Given a positive integer N, where N < 100000, find the smallest bipartite number that is greater than and a multiple of N. A bipartite number is any positive integer that contains exactly 2 distinct decimal digits s and t such that s is not 0 and all occurrences of s precede all occurrences of t. For example 44444411 is bipartite (s is 4 and t is 1), So are 41, 10000000, and 5555556. However, neither 4444114 nor 44444 are bipartite".

For example, for the numbers N in the first column the smallest bipartite number that is greater than and a multiple of N is given in the second column:

N	bipartite number
125	500
17502	77778888
2005	222555

The code to determine if a given number X is bipartite, is fairly easy to write. Here X is a multiple of N. One code to do it, int isbipartite(X), is given below, where a return value of 1 is true, and 0 is false.

The obvious solution to the problem is, given N, let X take the values 2N, 3N, 4N, ... , and the first of these values that is bipartite is the solution. The only problem with this solution is, for many values of N, the method takes too much time, and your program exceeds the execution time limit set by the judges.

Last night, I tried to compute a table, that for N=1 to 99999, determines which smallest multiple of N, namely which of 2N, 3N, 4N, ... , is a bipartite number. The way I did this is to compute 2*1, 2*2, 2*3, 2*4, ... , 2*99999, and if any one of these is already bipartite, I did not include it any more in the next step of the table construction. In the next step, I computed 3*1, 3*2, 3*3, 3*4, ... , 3*99999, and if any of these is already bipartite, then I did not include it anymore in the next step. And so on. I ran the program overnight, and this morning when I woke up, my table construction program has only found bipartite numbers for 700 of the 99999 numbers.

Then over breakfast, I discovered a better and quicker brute force solution. The method involves three steps. (1) Generate all the bipartite numbers that will fit in a integer of type long long (up to 18-20 decimal digits). This step took a few seconds with the program genbipartite() given below. (2) Sort the output of step 1, into a file bipartite.list. This step also took a few seconds. Steps (1) and (2) can actually be done using the Unix command

genbipartite | sort > bipartite.list

(3) For each number X in bipartite.list, from smallest to largest, determine which of the numbers N from 1 to less than X is an exact divisor of X, and if so, and if N does not have a bipartite number assigned to it yet, assign X as the bipartite number for N. This step was done with the function construct_table(). This last step took less than four minutes. Now you have a table that gives for each positive integer N from 1 to 99999 the number X that is greater than N, a multiple of N, and bipartite. The final solution will just involve table look up. All three steps can be combined using the Unix command

genbipartite | sort | construct_table > solution.c

Of course you still need to complete the program solution.c to do the look up in the table biparttab[].

Appendix

Here are the C program snippets that I mentioned above. They might be a little too much for the casual reader, so I have put them all together at the end of this post.


int isbipartite(long long X)
{
  int c, d, e, j, k;
  char numText[22];
  sprintf(numText, "%lld", X);
  for(c=numText[0], j=1; (d=numText[j]) != '\0'; ++j) {
    if(c != d) break;
  }
  if(d == '\0') return 0;
  for(k=j; (e=numText[k]) != '\0'; ++k) {
    if(d != e) break;
  }
  if(e == '\0') return 1;
  return 0;
}

/* genbipartite.c */

void genbipartite(void)
{
  int j, k;
  long long jj, kk, m, n, x;
  for(j=2; j<=18; ++j) {
    for(k=1; k < j; ++k) {
      for(m=0, jj=k+1; jj <= j; ++jj)
        m = m*10 + 1;
      for(n=0, kk=1; kk <= k; ++kk) {
        m = m*10;
        n = n*10 + 1;
      }
      for(jj=1; jj <= 9; ++jj) {
        for(kk=0; kk <= 9; ++kk) {
          if(jj == kk) continue;
          x = jj*m + kk*n;
          fprintf(stdout, "%018lld\n", x);
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

int main() { genbipartite(); }

/* construct_table.c */

struct tbl {
  int done;
  long long multiple; 
};

struct tbl entry[100000];

void construct_table(doid)
{
  int j;
  long long x;
  for(j=1; j < 100000; ++j) {
    entry[j].done = 0;
    entry[j].multiple = 0;
  }
  while(fscanf(stdin, "%lld\n", &x) == 1) {
    for(j=1; j < 100000; ++j) {
      if(j >= x) break;
      if(x % j == 0) {
        if(entry[j].done) continue;
        entry[j].multiple = x;
        entry[j].done = 1;
      }
    }
  }
  fprintf(stdout, "long long biparttab[99999] = {\n"); 
  for(j=1; j < 100000; ++j) {
    fprintf(stdout, "%lld,\n", entry[j].multiple);
  }
  fprintf(stdout, "};\n");
}

int main() { construct_table(); }

Computerizing Philippine Elections: The Comelec Computers

2006-10-03T20:51:00.000-07:00

The Comelec has spent a lot of money on those PCs with OMR (Optical mark readers). PCs are delicate machines and get obsolete very quickly. If you keep them in storage, like Comelec is doing now, and the storage facilities are not the proper kind for sensitive electronic equipment, then they may break down in storage, or if they don't, they may become obsolete if stored for too long. Just compare the 300MHz Intel Celerons of a few years back to today's 2.8GHz Intel Core Duos. You do not want to use the 300MHz Celerons today because, either they are just too slow for your needs today, or they have already broken down. That is why in my original article, I suggested that Comelec should not buy PCs for use at the voting precincts, because Comelec will end up with obsolete or broken-down PCs in just two to three years. That is why I suggested that Comelec rent PCs from schools, Internet cafes, banks, etc. What Comelec should buy are the PC servers for the Comelec server farms. Comelec should also buy bandwidth to connect their servers to the Internet.

We are a country consisting of more than seven thousand islands, separated by seas. If you use the Comelec PC/OMRs to produce precinct summaries on diskettes, which is what Comelec wanted to do, you still had that serious problem of moving those diskettes via land and sea, to the election tabulation Centers. God sent the Internet to these seven thousand islands as an instrument of unity -- to unite our people in one communication link, so that our voices and votes can be heard instantly, just seconds after we cast our votes. What buses and sea-going vessels failed to do, the Internet will -- that is, connect our people together, so that our voices can be heard as one, instantly!

What do you do with those Comelec PC/OMRs? They are already here, laying idle in the Comelec warehouses, probably slowly breaking down in storage, their cmos batteries discharging, the DIMM ram connectors oxidizing, etc. Do we just let billions of pesos of our tax money go to waste? I suggest that we use these machines. We equip them with network cards, and on election day, we place them in the Internet cafes, at school computer labs, in banks and in offices that have Internet connection. And we use them for paper-ballot voting, for those people who are afraid of touching computers. The only difference is, as soon as the voter finishes accomplishing his paper ballot, he can stick it into the OMR, which reads his votes, sends his vote via the Internet to the Comelec server farm, so that his vote is instantly counted, just like the vote of everyone else.

So now, people can vote using [PC/Internet/browser] in cafes, schools, or at home. People can also vote using the [ComelecPC/OMR/Internet/paper-ballot] in Internet cafes, and schools. People can also vote using [mobile phone/GPRS/Internet] anywhere they are.

Just take your pick.

Computerizing Philippine Elections, Part 2

2006-10-01T21:17:00.000-07:00

The biggest complaints about the method of computerization that I proposed earlier are: (1) There are many far flung areas in the Philippines where there are no roads, no electricity, no computers, and no Internet. (2) Many parents and grandparents are computer illiterate, or they cannot handle the mouse firmly to click on a candidate's name.

The first problem is easy to solve. Let us allow people in those far flung areas where there are no facilities to vote the old way -- teachers commissioned by Comelec go to those far flung areas, carrying ballots, ballot boxes, and other election paraphernalia, on horseback, if necessary. People will vote the same old-fashioned way -- on paper ballots. Their votes get counted the same old slow way. Their votes will be counted, but will be included in the national count many months after the elections are over, because manual counting and manual transporting of election results take time. The rest of the country -- those that live in the big towns and cities, where there are computers and Internet -- can vote in the new manner that I proposed. Their votes are counted and the results of voting are announced a few seconds after voting hours close on election day. The will the people, the great majority of whom live in the big towns and cities, is immediately known. People who live in those far-flung areas are too few for their votes to change the results already made known by the Internet count. Isn't knowing the will of the people the reason for elections, in the first place?

The second problem of computer illiteracy can be eased somewhat by proper choice of user interface. The election web page can allow the user to vote using the mouse, or the keyboard, or the touch screen if it is available. Voters who do not know how to use a mouse can use the keyboard instead; candidates will be assigned letters on the qwerty keyboard and all that the voter needs to do is press the key corresponding to his candidate. For multi-page elections, when there are many candidates, some keys can be assigned to do the function of "previous page" and "next page". Whether the voter uses the mouse or keyboard or touch screen to vote, the voter still needs to authenticate himself to the election program, and he does this by logging in (typing) with his voter's ID number and password. If the voter can not even do this, then he has to use the old fashioned way of voting with a paper ballot.

The mobile phone can also be used to vote. Since the phone has only ten numbers, then only eight candidates can be shown per web page, since two keys need to be reserved for "page up" and "page down". Yet the phone can be used for voting by those who are phone savvy, and we Filipinos are well-known for being phone-savvy.

These two problems can not be solved immediately. It will take many years before all barrios had electricity, computers, and Internet. It will take many years, maybe forever, before every Filipino can learn to use computers or mobile phones. This does not mean that we should not try to use this wonderful technology, which is already here in our midst, to effect clean, orderly, honest, and fast, elections.

Computerizing Philippine Elections

2006-09-20T19:54:00.000-07:00

A true computerization of Philippine elections will utilize computer and communications technology in all stages of the electoral process: during registration of voters, the actual casting of ballots, the subsequent canvassing of votes, and the final tabulation and reporting of election results. It can not be just the use of stand-alone automated counting machines, namely PCs with optical mark readers (OMRs) to count votes made on paper ballots, because then, the transmission of precinct results to municipal, provincial, and national tabulation centers becomes a major problem. Stand alone PCs is the technology of the 1980s, and would have been appropriate election technology at that time. Now, we live in the connected world of the twenty-first century, in which people make financial transactions over secure web connections. If secure web is good enough to be trusted for making financial transactions, then it is good enough to be trusted to properly count our votes during elections.

The Election Modernization Act (RA 8436) declares as policy of the State: "to ensure free, orderly, honest, peaceful and credible elections, and assure the secrecy and sanctity of the ballot in order that the results of elections, plebiscites, referenda, and other electoral exercises shall be fast, accurate and reflective of the genuine will of the people". To carry out this policy, "the Commission on Elections (Comelec) ... is authorized to use an automated election system ... for the process of voting, counting of votes and canvassing/consolidation of results of the national and local elections ...". RA 8436 goes further and commands Comelec to " ... acquire automated counting machines, computer equipment, devices and materials and adopt new forms and printing materials ...". I do not understand why a law with such noble purpose needs to specify the use of automated counting machines, an inappropriate technology in these Internet times. The Comelec should respect the policy, the spirit of the law, but implement a mechanism that is more appropriate today.

Internet Infrastructure: Election Hardware

All over the country, one finds computer rental shops that rent out computer time to walk-in customers for use in Internet access, gaming, chat, word processing, etc. Almost all of the better schools have Internet-connected computer laboratories. The ExpressNet and BancNet automatic teller machines are all over the country, and are all connected in a huge nationwide network. In the homes of many families, one finds computers that can connect to the Internet via dial-up telephone lines or via faster always-on DSL connections. Many coffee shops and similar establishments have wifi hotspots that provide Internet access to customers who bring laptops or wifi-enabled mobile phones and PDAs. Many of us carry in our persons mobile phones that can browse the Internet via GPRS or 3G. The connected infrastructure is already in place, except that ExpressNet and BancNet may have to install a temporary Internet gateway during election periods. So there exists locally an essentially connected network of PCs, laptops, PDAs, and mobile phones, that can be used during elections. All that is needed are Comelec server farms connected to the Internet, and software commissioned by Comelec to serve the secure registration web pages and the secure election web pages.

Comelec can rent computer time from all these computer rental shops, schools, banks, and wifi hotspots. It can pay at PHP25.00 per hour per PC, or at PHP2.00 per voter, or some other reasonable price.

The Comelec does not even have to buy the server farm that will be used only during elections, and will be unused for the three years between elections. Instead, the Presidential Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) can acquire the server farm for the government to be used regularly by all government agencies, and during the election season to carry the additional load of registration and election.

Internet Infrastructure: Election Software

On the PCs, laptops, PDAs, and mobile phones, all we need is a web browser program, like Internet Explorer for WindowsOS, and Firefox for WindowsOS and LinuxOS. Internet-capable PDAs and mobile phones already have browser programs built into them. If the Comelec wants to standardize on the OS and browser program, for uniformity of user interface, it could adopt Knoppix or Ubuntu, which are both free boot-from-CD LinuxOS. Every school, computer rental shop, Internet cafe, etc can be given a few UbuntuCDs with which to boot all their PCs, already pre-configured for the special needs of Comelec registration/election.

On each Comelec server in the server farm, we need a database of registered voters, which can be implemented using PostgreSQL or MySQL, both of which have free versions. Also, the CICT or Comelec programmers must write the secure registration and election web pages. They can use PHP on Apache/SSL, both of which are free. If the CICT or Comelec can not afford the cost of programmers, then we can use student programmers from UP, Ateneo, DLSU, Mapua, UST, etc. The government can save a lot of money this way, and the students can submit their programs as their BS degree theses.

With this kind of infrastructure already in place, or easily made available, the government can affordably implement the mandate of RA8436.

Voter Registration over Secure Web

Comelec will designate which among the many computer rental shops, schools, Internet cafes, etc will be used as official registration and election centers. Comelec will determine which computers in these registration centers can be used for registration and election. Let us call these Comelec-approved PCs the ComelecPCs. Voters who will register or vote will not go to their original precincts in the public schools, but instead, go to these Comelec-designated registration and election centers.

The registration program will be running on the Comelec server farm, and will be accessed using the ComelecPCs, under the supervision of Comelec-designated registrars. In the first year of implementation, Comelec does not have to issue voters' IDs, since it does not seem to have the budget for it. Registration will therefore consist of entering the voter's data on the webform, assignment of a voter's ID number, and selection by the voter of his secret password, which only the voter knows. When registration is complete, the voter is given a slip of paper with his name and voter's ID number. The voter may choose to write his secret password on this slip, if he chooses, so that he does not forget his password. To vote, all that the voter needs is his ID number and his secret password.

At any time after registration, the voter may access the Comelec server farm, using the Comelec URL, to change his secret password.

After the first year of implementation, the Comelec may choose to issue SmartCard voters' IDs, which contain computer-readable data about the voter, such as voter's name, voter's ID number, and other useful data. Then the ComelecPCs need to be equipped with SmartCard readers, and that will mean additional expenses.

Voting over Secure Web

On election day, the Comelec server farm will accept votes during the usual voting hours, and stop accepting votes at the end of the voting period. A voter can go to his assigned ComelecPC, and vote using that computer, or he can stay at home and vote using his home PC, or vote using his wifi-enabled laptop at a wifi-hotspot Cafe, or vote anywhere using his mobile phone. This way, no goon can stop a voter from casting his vote. The government must ensure that the Comelec-designated election centers with the ComelecPCs is properly secured from goon-threat.

The official election centers will have Comelec-designated election staff, to help voters who may not be computer-literate.

To vote on election day, a voter must login to the Comelec election URL, by supplying his voter's ID number and his password. Further, he must authenticate himself as a human voter, and not a computer program casting a vote, by typing in text that he is asked to read from a graphic. If the voter forgets his voter's ID number, he can give his name and address, and the webpage will give him his voter's ID number. Then he can login with his voter's ID number and password. If he forgets his password, then the voter can not vote at home. He must then go to his designated election center, and show proof of his identity to the Comelec registrar in the center. The voter's ID number, and two picture IDs (any two of passport, driver's license, SSS ID, GSIS ID, BIR ID), should be sufficient proof of identity. These proofs of identity are scanned, and uploaded to the Comelec website, as part of the voter's login process.

On successful login, the webserver program determines the voter's town, district, and province, and gives him a webpage showing all candidates, their pictures, and a one-liner on their program of government. The voter just clicks his choices, and when he is satisfied he clicks on the SUBMIT button, and his vote is cast.

At the end of the voting period, the webserver program computes town, district, province, and national summaries, and displays the result in a webpage for the world to see.

Conclusion

With such an election system in place, election results are known immediately after the polls close.

There will be problems, like voter's selling the voter's ID numbers and passwords to the highest bidders, or goons controlling an election center, and forcibly extracting voters' ID numbers and passwords from everyone, and voting in their place. No election system will ever be perfect.

The method proposed here, though imperfect, is affordable and workable, and is much better than the current system of manual elections, where even ghosts can vote.

Paul marries Mia

2006-09-16T21:45:00.000-07:00

My son Paul married his girlfriend Mia on Saturday, September 9, 2006, at Christ the King Parish Church on Greenmeadows Avenue in Libis, Quezon City. It was a Catholic wedding. During the reception at the Greenmeadows Clubhouse -- one of the principal sponsors, Dr. Angel Chua, the bride's father, Mr Ed Madrid, and I -- we were asked to give advice, some words of wisdom to the newly wed couple.

I was told to keep my piece to two to three minutes only. So here are some "words of wisdom" to the newly wed.

Pareng Ed Madrid said that he didn't really lose a daughter, but instead gained a son, so now he has three sons. I didn't really lose a son, but gained a daughter, so now I have three daughters.

To Paul and Mia:

Call on God to give you the grace to live together as husband and wife, from today, for the rest of your lives. We heard Fr. Bob Pepito say, "That is why a man must leave his father and mother, and cling to his wife, and the two shall become as one". You are two distinct and unique people, and to be as one for the rest of your lives requires tremendous effort and miraculous intervention from God. Make prayer a daily family practice, to call on God to keep you one.

To Paul:

Paul, love Mia. She did not marry you for your money, because you have none. She did not marry you for your good looks, because you have barely half your father's good looks. She must have married you for love. So love her. Love her in your thoughts, words, actions, and omissions. In what you do or not do, in what you say or not say, in what you think, you must be guided by you love for her. Do not cheat, or take another woman or man to bed, but her.

A Father's Blessing:

A Jesuit priest once told me that a father's blessing, like that of Abraham to Isaac, is like God's blessing. So I now give you my blessing: May God bless you Paul and Mia, and may he give you happiness and peace, and if He wills, may he give you children and riches beyond count. And may God bless us all.

What "AmboSpeak" is about

2006-09-15T01:41:00.000-07:00

AmboSpeak will be a commentary about the Filipino, as I see the Filipino from my narrow point of view. It will be a once-in-a-while commentary, since I am not too good at writing, but I will write whenever the Spirit moves me, and I have something really important to talk about, or whenever I have very strong opinions about an issue -- whether academic, religious, political, etc.

This is just an ice-breaker. You will hear more from me.